years now that those of us here who have a lot of the responsibility for executing our policy including myself, dr. shabb dr. mills and others aley can understand through our understanding and cut through my misunderstanding that might be afoot by face-to-face contact. and it also gives us a chance to report back to our international partners as well. i've spoken to a number of foreign ministers and heads of state who are asking questions about how things are operating and what they can do to contribute. and it just gives you a level of credibility in this implementation phase that we're finding ourselves in. yeah? >> how concerned are you about the possibility that as people now live on the streets for several days don't have food,

water, shelter and are surrounded by corpses, in some cases of their loved ones, that their sort of anguish may turn to rage? . -- sporadic l make it worse? what can the u.s. government to do to try to forestall that? >> i think it is understandable when he met beings are -- when he men beings are as distress at the haitians are, when they have suffered such grievous losses, and they are still experiencing and they are still experiencing afters -- there were more today -- it is an extremely anxious environment. add to that the difficulty of loved ones still trapped in

rubble, inadequate food, water, medical supplies. you can relate to the challenges that the people of haiti face. i think that everyone agrees that up until this point, and the matters have been well in hand. there is a process of grieving which includes anchor. reading anger. -- anger. that is just part of the human dna. we think the peacekeepers are doing an excellent job. they have about 7000 peacekeepers on the street patrolling. there are primarily responsible for law and order. they need help. the haitian police force has been severely impacted. we give a varying estimates of how many are actually left and able to [unintelligible]

we have american military assets that we have put on the peacekeeping force. are three-star general on the ground is personally acquainted with the governor in charge. this is a very tough situation. that is why we are trying to move as quickly as possible to remedy underlying causes that might give rise to people being desperate. we are aware that there are all kinds of potential problems on the horizon but we are trying to be prepared to help the haitian government to deal with. b>> do you think that conditions will actually get worse in the

days ahead or do you think the corner is being turned? >> i think every hour that goes by we get more resources on the ground and more people deplete -- deployed to act to what is required in this very large disasters seem. i think we are making a lot of progress. it goes back to the question, is our progress fast enough for the people love them without food or water or who are sitting there with a severely injured relative? i think if you or i were in this situation, it would be fast enough no matter how fast we were moving. any fair assessment that i could make which showed that the united states government, the international community, everybody, is really stepping up. we are making a lot of progress.

it is a race against time. it is a race against time to establish a means for clearing the roads of the more supplies can get in. everybody is pushing as hard as they can. i think we are making a lot of progress. i want to make sure we move as quickly and effectively as the camp. >> the united states have been giving money and aid to haiti for development for decades. every time, there is a crisis and the money -- you take one step forward and five steps back. what can be different this time to make sure that haitixd can stand on its own 2 feet? you have this fragile political situation with the government'. how can the government stand up

and assert authority since the presence as you like to return and help is people bring supplies. this could show a lot of discontent. people are scared. do you think the -- this is the right time for him? >> let us take it one day at a time. our immediate need right now is to do what is required in been search and rescue phase and transitioning to the physical recovery effort. clearing the rubble, and getting concealed hospitals, restocking the hospital sector still standing.

-- hospitals that are still standing. having turned a lot of our attention to how we could effectively work with haiti starting back last year, we were really making progress. we had a good plan. itñr was a haitian plan. the haitian government created the plan. it was realistic. it was focus. we worked with them. we came in with añi very successful donors' conference. we had a lot of buy in from many other countries. xdit was certainly on track toñd ñihaiti has suffered enormously over the course of this existence from all kinds of factories. some of it was interference.

it said that all types of opportunities. some of it wishes by the battering of nature. xdit got more of the problems. i think there is resilience among the people of haiti. i think it bodes well for being able to bring about reconstruction and recovery efforts. ñithe united nations is heavily committed. my husband is the envoy. it was so ironic that monday night there is a story of how haiti was on the way back.

it was such a hopeful story. it had interviews with elected officials, business leaders people who watched that were so revved up. one thing it showed was a successful business conference that my husband led a few months ago, 500 businesses from all over the world. they were signing contracts. the next day, this happened. it is not easy. we know there is a long way to go. if we are smart about how we choose to interact with them and if we have the right set of expectations, i think that it can be done. >> [inaudible] >> i do not have any comment on that. >> i am wondering if you have an update on unaccounted americans

and whether you are troubled by the fact that the embassy may not have heard from a lot of americans are whether you have some logical explanation. >> i am troubled. i am very troubled. communication is still very difficult. we are encouraged by those of whom we have made upon contact -- made contact. we are working feverishly to track down as many as the camp. thankfully, a lot of people have caught him with information. -- called in with information. a friend called a friend called a friend brita they contacted us. -- called a friend. they contacted us. one was staying in hotels. nobody heard from her. we take every piece of

confirmation and try to follow up on it. we found a young woman alive. it is going to take a number more days before we can piece all that together. >> the number of countries that are providing assistance to haiti -- it need some coordination. the girardi consoled internationally? >> -- did you already consult internationally? >> the in 90 nations -- the united nations has been instrumental in coordinating the pasture for what we have done for haiti. the mission has been severely impacted. we do not know the exact numbers of lives that have been lost. but they are trying to continue their work. the united nations will be ivery much involved. we have to wait on that.

[unintelligible] everyone is very willing to have. there will be an organized effort. >> the cubans opened their air space for humanitarian aid. >> we appreciate that. >> how significant is that? do you anticipate further reduce recorded nations with the cubans in regard to haiti? >> we very much appreciate the cubans opening their airspace for medical evacuation and emergency flights. we would welcome any other actions that the cuban government could take in the international rescue and recovery mission. i thought i saw a hand back there. >> i talked to the president of france today. he called for national

confidence. [inaudible] >> we are all committed to doing that. we need to get to this. there -- we have to have a division of responsibility. i do not think it will be productive just to have a conference. you want to conference with assignments that people are willing to accept. we have to delegate conjunction with both the government of haiti and the un. >> are you aware of any action? >> i know that we have shown notice of some contributions. i cannot tell you that is. there is always room for more. >> i would like to know what your plan is with preval.

what is your job to help the government. i want you to know why you think there is inappropriate time to go down there when there is a major relief operation under way? >> i would not be going if i thought it would have any adverse impact on the relief efforts. i have been asked to come. after evaluating it, we and taken every step we can to minimize any impact. i will not be using accessñi lie automobiles that should be better used for torrance beating -- that would be used for transporting medical for transporting medical person it is a detriment that we have reached that this is the easel -- it is a judgment that we have reached that this is it time for me to go. i have analyzed this.

i have been through more crises and emergencies then i can even remember over the course of a long time. i do not ever want to do anything that interferes with or imposes a burden on the people that you are doing the work. -- on the people that are doing the work. we need to send messages about our ongoing commitment and our relationship with president preval and the haitian government. we are hearing firsthand from our embassy mission, from our military leadership. then we are bringing in taking human and other materials that i wrote. that is what we are going to talk about. it is hard to do long distance. because i've worked with the

president, we had a close working relationship with him. thers, including the prime minister. we really need to spend some time thinking through how we can help them. you can imagine how it must feel to be in this position where you have no tools of government. you have an enormous amount of anxiety because so many people, friends, loved ones, have been hurt. you have no idea where they are or if they are live. you cannot communicate with them. i think it will be an important step to ensure we empower them every way that we can. we take responsibility for a time that they can not physically perform. our goal is to really help them. that is making sure that they

have a government that the gains in capacity to function over the weeks ahead. . . to just add a little bit of textured this afternoon, the haitian prime minister signed a memorandum of understanding granting airport control to the united states. >> and also, we've reached an agreement where u.s. physicians who are now on the ground in haiti will be allowed to treat the quake victims.

some of the legal processes that are necessary to make sure that we are able to do the life-saving work that is before us. as of mid afternoon this afternoon, we've moved about 197 american citizens, as the secretary said, as part of this ongoing evacuation. so by the end of the day we'll be up to about 1,000 american citizens, either official or private, who have been evacuated out of haiti or who are either on their way back or will be back in the united states. and finally, the secretary spoke today with dominican republic president fernandez. we're going to, as we've suggested in the last couple of days, use assets within the dominican republic as a hub to help augment the logistical network that we're setting up. and she also spoke today with

the brazilian foreign minister. and during that conversation, in fact the prospect of an international donor's conference did come up, and they agreed that this was something that was vitally important. your first question, please. >> is it definite that the u.s. is in control of the airport? is that indefinite? and can you address the press coverage of the secretary's trip. >> on your first point, obviously, we will assume this responsibility as long as is appropriate. and to the point where the haitian government is able and ready to resume that capability . where obviously, the secretary has just made the decision to go a short time ago. we don't even know the aircraft on which she will go, so we're working the press arrangements, and i think we're also in contact with your leadership with how to best do that. >> can you talk a little bit about adoptions of haitian children? there are about 250, i think, parents who were in line to

adopt haitian children, had specifically identified someone who was in the pipeline. what are you trying to do with these? you apparently had a meeting on friday with a bunch of international organizations to discuss this. what is the state of play regarding that? >> yeah. there are roughly somewhere up to 300 cases that we're aware of where there were adoptions in some process. we are very aware of the issue. we are talking to the department of homeland security about this. but we have nothing to announce at this point. >> well, can you just talk a little -- without anything to announce, can you talk a little bit more in speaks fifty about some of your efforts? is it true you -- specificity about some of your efforts? it's obviously something that you're taking very seriously. >> it's a good question, i don't know. but it is something that our counsel of affairs people are working through.

>> just to go back to bob's question, can you explain -- bob asked if it was indefinite, and you said we'll assume this responsibility for as long as necessary, until the haitian government can take it up. so it is indefinite? the documents that were signed don't have some kind of a timeline, like three months or six months. it's sort of open-ended? >> i haven't seen the document, but as we've said, as the secretary said, we are helping the government of haiti in ways that are vitally important to them. we've augmented the airport staff, those who have manned the airport. understandably, some are on the job, but many are home dealing with the impact and the aftermath of the earthquake. so it is something that we thought was important. it's important in the immediate term to be able to flow the supplies that are now coming in to the airport, the medical

equipment, food, water, materials for shelter. so the pace of operations, you know, is such that we have a capability that quite honestly the dost of haiti does not current -- the goff of haiti does not -- government of haiti does not currently have. when we met with president preval, this was one thing, that the airport remain open an be used for the vitally important military work. so we will take this for a period of time and at a point in the future, who knows? these operations go through set phases. you can't quite predict exactly reaching the ends of the emergency response phase. we're going to go into a recovery phase at some point in the future by mutual agreement. we will turn this responsibility back over to the

haitian government. part of that will be determined by at what point will the military role transition to other capabilities. so, yeah, indefinite is a pretty good word. >> can you please speak to the question about adoption? a lot of things are in legal limbo. so my understanding is there are talks between the two governments. >> i mean, it is an issue that we're working within our own government, and i just don't know what more you can say at this point. it will be something that -- obviously, it's very important to the families that have been working through the adoption process. we recognize that. we obviously want to be able to bring these children to safety. but there are issues -- there are complexities in terms of

what their status is in haiti and there's a legal process that we have to work through. >> i'm trying to confirm that there was a meeting here on friday with a group of international adoption organizations and more than 30 congressional staffers, offices of representatives, of people. >> i'll take the question as to whether or not there was a meeting. >> can we get an update on the numbers? >> which numbers? >> if you can give us a total dollar figure on u.s. aid, that would be helpful, plus casualties, injured. >> an aid figure is really difficult. the president pledged $100 million. i think in terms of the immediate response, it's probably going to go higher than that. but i don't think we can really put a specific dollar figure on it at this point. what other figures? >> i just -- you gave -- you

have asked if there's a casualties, injured list. >> the numbers haven't changed all that much through the day. i would say we have the hotline that we've opened for people, that the secretary alluded to. we've received -- we've opened about 6,000 cases in terms of people have reported in about the questions about their loved ones. we've already been able to resolve about 1,000 of those. so we are actively working both here and in haiti to try to make sure that we can determine as best we can the status of american citizens in haiti. but in terms of fatalities, we have the -- one state department employee that we talked about yesterday,. we're aware of fy confirmed private citizens who have perished in this. we think that there are, at

least ta we're aware of, up to 15 others that may be presumed dead at this point. 15. >> as many as? >> as many as 15 others. but clearly, we recognize that this number is going to go up as the days go on. >> one, five and 15. >> in addition? >> so we have one confirmed official fatality, we have five confirmed private citizens, we have 15 others that we presume at this point, based on information that we have. >> and is everybody accounted for among the official u.s. delegations? >> we still have three unaccounted for. david? >> another subject. >> sure. >> there's some reporting that china is disinclined to attend the political directors meeting in new york on saturday. is that -- >> there will be a p-5 plus one meeting tomorrow afternoon.

we will be sending our political director under secretary bill burns. we understand that china will not be sending their political director, but we look forward to the meeting. we think it will be very useful as we continue our consultations with the international community on the situation with respect to iran and its nuclear ambitions. we look forward to the meeting, and china, i believe, will be represented. >> what do you hope to get out of this meeting? >> you know, i think it's a step in the process, and we haven't had a p-5 plus one meeting. this will be the first of the year. it comes at a point where we continue to evaluate where we are with respect to iran. and as we've said many, many times, the door remains open to

engagement, but we are looking at ways in which we might be able to apply pressure to iran, and we'll continue these consultations both with an f--- p-5 plus one process, and it is an important step in the process. >> and given the ostensible agreement that was reached in geneva in october regarding the tehran research reactor, one, are you aware of any sign whatsoever that the iranians still have any interest in that agreement? and then secondly, on the assumption that you don't have any such signs, is it fair to say that what you are hoping to get out of the meeting is some kind of an agreement to pursue further sanctions? even if you don't actually agree on what those might be tomorrow. >> you mean notwithstanding, you know, an iranian deadline

applied to their unacceptable counteroffer to our quite reasonable offer. we're working this as a process. i wouldn't -- so the meeting tomorrow is useful, important. i wouldn't expect that particular deliverable out of this meeting. but we are consulting within the p-5 plus one with the membership of the security council and more broadly, on the way forward, we are communicating our concern and the concern of the international community for iran's inability or unwillingness to we are going to continue down this road.

it does the preclude that they cannot come back at some point. part of this process is we think the we will continue to discuss the actions as options with our partners and it will communicate that there are consequences for the steps that he either has taken or seems unwilling to take. >> on the search and rescue effort, can you explain how the teams choose where they go? they're most likely to find larger buildings, or where you actually have the four american teams right now? >> in terms of hour to hour operational details, i would defer to the disaster assistance response team, the dart folks, down on the ground

in haiti. it's hard to characterize it from there. their work continues. we understand there is an increasing sense of urgency, because we're coming to the outer edges of the window where we think that people could still be successfully pulled out of rubble. we're going to continue with this effort. we've put more search and rescue capability on the ground today. so there is an urgency to this. since they arrived working with the assessment team, they've been able to reach out, to move out into the city, and through their means, they've got dogs, they've got other ways in which they can both eyed fee -- identify where they think there might still be someone trapped in the rubble. and also, all the reporting that comesing in from people who have been -- coming in from

people who have been able to hear voices in the rubble. they have done their work, an then as more teams have come in internationally from different parts of the world, you know, there's been this coordinated and combined approach to try to get to as many places as possible, rescue as many of the victims as possible. >> do you have any comment about the refueling mission? >> i don't. obviously, this mab a matter for the new -- has been a matter for the new government to decide. that said, japan continues to make important contributions to the mission in afghanistan. the secretary had a wide-ranging bilateral discussion with the foreign minister in honolulu earlier this week. we look forward to continuing our joint efforts and shared interests. we will look forward to recognizing the 50th anniversary of the u.s.-japan security alliance on tuesday.

but this was a decision that japan made, and obviously, we've been in consultation with them for sometime about this and other issues. >> president preval has apparently said that he feels like his national police force is adequate to control the city. and he says that 82nd airborne is welcome for support, but he believes the national police should be in the lead. has that been conveyed to you as officials, an is there any response? >> well, president preval met with the ambassador today. he had a conversation with president obama, as well as the secretary said, she'll be meeting with them tomorrow. we will continue to go through and work with the government of haiti. we've had many conversations with them since the earthquake. they have communicated to us what they think the priorities are, and we always have to remember here, haiti is sovereign. and to the extent that they have capabilities and they believe that those capabilities are meeting their own national

interest, we are there to support them. so the haitian national police force is still functioning. obviously, like other elements of haitian society, it has undoubtedly taken a serious hit based on the events of this week. to the extent that they need to be augmented, you do have people there, and they are doing their own augmenttation of the security force, as they have been for many years many and the 82nd airborne is there in a humanitarian role. they come with capabilities, and to the extent we have offered those capabilities to the government of haiti, and well o'work with them in what they think the appropriate need for the 82nd airborne is. >> this morning i think you told us that secretary clinton haddadi a conversation with

chinese foreign minister young this week. i think you said did you not know whether the issue of google came up in that conversation. >> it's been in the last several days. i can try to place it. >> so post the google announcement on tuesday. >> pre-the announcement. >> did the topic of google come up in that conversation? >> no. >> have you had any further contacts with chinese diplomats in washington since yesterday's launch with the d.c.m.? >> not yet, no. >> do you plan to call anybody in? sorry. >> well, we will continue to talk to china on this issue. it touches on things that are very important to us, internet freedom, network security, and human rights. and, you know, we will -- as the secretary said earlier this

week, this incident raises serious questions, and we have and will continue to seek answers from china. and we will have further conversations with china, but i'm not aware that there have been any since yesterday. >> you said that there will be a march. will it be a protest or -- >> we will have further discussions with china. when those occur, we'll let you know. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] we will >> logon to our website for more information from haiti. that and more at c-span.org. the house democratic caucus met today for a summit at the

capitol. afterward, members of the leadership spoke with reporters to discuss their ideas for job creation as low as the status of health care legislation. this is 30 minutes. >> once again, on behalf of our chairman and leader john larsen, who was called back home for family reasons, we just want to say that this has been an exciting issue. our focus was on what it should be, it jobs, securing america. we also spent time with leaders like bill clinton, talking about the tragedy in haiti. spent time with leaders like bill clinton, talking about the tragedy in

haiti but i must tell you, we just had a powerful, sensible wind blown beneath our wings by bill clinton, former president of the united states. to start this conference off with another president, eric schmidt from google, to hear from the president of the united states, barack obama and to have been between more than a dozen presidents in ceo's of business and labor come before us and tell us of their optimism and their belief that we can get this done i believe the leaves are members ready to go back to work next week. we are prepared to take the words of bill clinton, barack obama, eric schmidt into with the people of america have been waiting for and that is for us to pass health care legislation,

to put americans back to work and to have sensible policy on energy and to bring this forward in foreign policy as well and we heard from our leaders, principally from the speaker of the house of representatives and she reported to us as well and i would like to now turn over the microphone to her. madam speaker. >> thank you very much javier becerra vice chair of the caucus, thanks to u.n. to john larsen for an invigorating couple of days. it was exciting but it also gave us time to think, to reflect, to pause as we go forward. one year almost since the day that the president was sworn in, nearly a year. we can take stock about the agenda that he put forth, the budget that we passed, to grow our economy, to stabilize the u.s. economy to create jobs, to lower taxes for the middle class as we reduce the deficit centered around three pillars, investments and education,

investments in energy/climate change, investments in health care first among equals. and these three days, we have leaders from every field. win eric schmitz spoke to us little that we know when he was abided that it would be the day that google would be making its statesman of china about freedom of expression, which is so important to all of us. in fact it is your profession and me thank you for that. that we would hear from the president about these three investments yesterday and from president clinton today about how important our focus on job, securing jobs, securing america, they are related so i thank feist chair becerra and i thank chairman larsen again for providing this then you for us to have an exchange of ideas with leaders, as he mentioned

panels, our friends in labor and others about how we go forward with the creation of jobs through innovation, and new jobs which reach not only about getting jobs to those who have them but reaching whole other populations and giving them hope for better jobs in the very near future. again, first among equals is the issue of investment in health care and i thank you all for your interest in that subject. it is a personal issue with the american people. tip o'neill said all politics is local. when it comes to health care, all politics is personal. everyone is an expert on his or her own health care insurance and the rest and so this is personal with the american people. it is about people, families, small businesses, our economy in general and to move forward in a

way that reduces the deficit as it grows our economy. the jobs, the health issue is a jobs issue in addition to doing a, of being a personal issue in terms of the health of the american people. so, i reported briefly to our colleagues that we are moving forward, we are making progress, we are establishing common ground on some of the few issues that were different in our bills, as the term goes, to reconcile them and i am very pleased that we are going forth to honor the 3a's, affordability for the middle class, accountability for the insurance companies and accessibility for many more americans to quality, affordable health care. we are doing this in a way that is fiscally sound. as you know it must be paid for but not only that, it must also bring down the cost of health

care now and over, and continue to do so over time so i am proud of the work of our chairman, mr. rangel and mr. miller, mr. ringgold, congresswoman waxman-- did i say one of them twice? congressman waxman as chair rules committee and all of our members, to mr. dingell it was the inspiration to us. congresswoman slaughter, did i acknowledge your? in any event it has been a lot of hard work for many people over a long period of time. no one has worked harder or more smartly than our step and i want to commend them as well but again we will move forward with more conversations this afternoon and hopefully when we get together next week we will have a lot more information to share with you. but, hopefully suffice to say, suffice to say for me anyway, again. we are finding our common

ground. we are making progress. we bring this congress closer to taking the historic step that has eluded other congresses in the past. it was first introduced by an idea and the country by a republican president, teddy roosevelt. to honor his idea on the commitment of so many others over the years we honor that responsibility but most of all the responsibility we have to the american people. president obama has said it over and over again. we will measure our success by we will now be to the majority leader. >> this has been a wonderful conference. they have done an extraordinary job in leading this. we just heard from bill clinton. i have been here from some years.

in the 1980's, we were talking about whether america will continue to compete in the world, with the germans and japanese are moving ahead of us at a rapid rate. in the 1990's, we adopted a program. we passed that in a partisan fashion, with no republican votes. we solve the greatest economic insurgents the piscine mi time. -- that i have seen in my lifetime. jobs were created. problems were addressed. a few months ago, we confronted the worst economic crisis since the great depression. we heard from president obama yesterday.

many of you have observed that we have just gone through one of the most productive sessions in the history of the house. that we have just gone through one of the most productive sessions in the history of the house. confronting the issues that the president said he was going to confront, we said we were going to confront and the american people knew it needed to be confronted. we needed to confront the economic crisis. we did so. the economy has been stabilized. we have brought as president obama noted, since the recovery act was adopted, a very substantial reduction in the loss of jobs. that is progress but not success. once we pass this health care bill as we are going to do in the near future, we are going to concentrate like a laser on creating jobs because we need to have america back to work.

we are going to make sure, as we have done, that we are going to be having energy security. that is our national security and our economic security interest. and we have to work with the senate to pass legislation to effect that end. and, we are going to insure fiscal responsibility, as was done in the clinton administration. contrary to the observation of those who opposed his economic program. we need to return to fiscal responsibility. so, i say to you that the major objectives of the second session of the congress we will be pursuing is the completion of the agenda that was so folsom in addressing the problems america confronted in the last session and now, create those jobs come and bring fiscal responsibility and ensure our national security. i want to also say that the unity of our caucus which was

reflected last year continues to exist, and in closing let me say one of the themes eric schmidt started with, president obama talked about and president clinton talked about is optimism. america of is going to be the continuing great economic engine of the world. we need the unity of purpose and we need to stop scaring in making angry and negative and the press to the american people, as to many in this country are doing and we need to call in summon them to a greater effort and we need to say to them, we will be with you and we are going to create those jobs, build the economy, make our energy system secure, and see a better america.

optimism and commitment are the themes of this conference. >> before you yield, i wanted to introduce someone. because i want to say something very special. thank you mr. leader. i associate myself with all of your remarks. there was a mention in my remarks, eric schmidt came to the day that google was making its expression about freedom of-- in china. to talk about health care in green jobs at etc, that it would be at this very sad time. he being the u.n. special envoy to haiti, a person with a personal connection to haiti, he and secretary clinton, they love the place, they love the people and the haitian people know that. so, we burberry blessed to have a report by the president on how he saw the situation in haiti.

from my own experience with their quakes, being from san francisco, i think this could be an opportunity for a real boom economy in haiti that can leapfrog over its past challenges, economically politically and demographically in terms of the rich and the poor and the rest there, and have a new, just a new fresh start and with all of the concern and compassion and enthusiasm to help the people of haiti, nobody is better suited them president clinton to channel that energy, but here in the congress, mr. clyburn has taken the initiative, working for a long time with the congressional black caucus in the interest in haiti in general and now specifically to address the concern that is in the congress, the channel that in a positive way under the leadership of president obama, i

think was particular. we saw first-hand his personal concern, his leadership on this issue but i am very pleased that our distinguished whip mr. clyburn who worked so hard to change attitudes toward katrina and get the sources-- resources there that were not immediately available but through his actions became available, he has agreed to be the head of our effort for haiti in the congress so i wanted to thank him for his long-term interest and for what he is going to do in that regard, as he comes to the microphone. >> thank you madam speaker. let me just say a word about katie. i think all of us have really been overjoyed at the response that president obama has made towards haiti on behalf of the american people. we saw him announce a million

dollar-- 100 million-dollar initiative in haiti. we will follow here in the congress with our response, and people all over america are responding in a very unique sort of ways to the people of haiti. and, to help facilitate that, i am joining with minority leader eric cantor, the good cheer of the ways and means committee, rangel, and the ranking member of the ways and means committee, congressman camp, filing legislation either later today or first thing monday to allow all of the american people who contribute to this haitian cause to be able to use their 2009 tax

deductions to assist them with the this so that if they were to join in this effort, because everybody is asking us, don't send food, send money so that people can organize, coordinate and respond in a way that would be affected so that food won't be left out on pallets to spoil, and that sort of thing. let this thing be coordinated and to facilitate that, we want to pass legislation, hopefully very soon. congress will do the things to respond to this but we want this to be a package, be a part of that package so people who to respond can deduct their contributions on their 2009 taxes. somebody just lost all of their

communications. i am sorry about that. let me just close my comments first by thanking javier becerra, my classmate, chairman larsen, who was one of my very close friends. we spend a lot of time together almost every evening. >> where would that be? [laughter] >> we work on the whip channel almost every evening. it gets a little bit glick would sometimes. i want to thank the speaker for just a tremendous effort she has put forth, not just here, but with this health care issue that we are looking to resolve here soon. my longtime friend, steny hoyer, we have been working very closely together on this and of

course chairman van holland, chris van hollen with whom i am consulting early this afternoon before takeoff for the weekend to help them with the efforts. i want to close with something the speaker said about how personal this health care reform issue is. in the town hall meetings i have held over the phone, in person, throughout my congressional district, people come to the mic to talk about health care reform in a very personal way. as president clinton said today, if you just forget about all of these other things that could help you make up your mind about it, just think about, as they said when i introduced the president, president obama win he came to our caucus the other day. i talked about my now

15-year-old grandson who came here three months before anybody expected him, three and a half pounds, having three operations before he was 20 pounds and had to-- and to watch him today because of this tremendous health care system that we have in the country, but knowing full well that he is able to take advantage of that, only because of who his parents and grandparents are and only because they have the kind of health insurance that would allow him, and watch my son-in-law and my daughter repaed this tremendous co-payment that took them over three years to pay for coming and you can get a good feel personally for why we have got to do this. so, i know we have cut a good health care system in this country, but there is something

wrong with saying that is only available to you if you are fortunate enough to be born into a family and it is only available to you if you are fortunate enough to be employed by a corporation that will provide you health care. and come we have got to do something about that and i am tremendously pleased that this democratic caucus is going to get this done in the not too distant future and i believe, as former president senator and now deceased kennedy once said, i believe that we are going to make this a fundamental right for every american, and that is as it should be and with that i would like to yield to our distinguished chair, chris van holland. >> thank you, thank you mr. clyburn and thank you for

your passionate commitment to these issues and all of my colleagues. it was a great caucus. an opportunity to take stock and where we have been and discuss how we are quinn to move forward and accelerate job creation in the days, weeks and months ahead. clearly, if you look back one year from this month, the economy was in total freefall, 750,000 americans lost their jobs at this time last year. the stock market was in the dumps and economic growth was going downward at a rate of 6.5%. working with their new president, passing economic recovery bill and with the entrepreneurial and optimism, spirit of the optimism of the american people we have now begun to stabilize the economy and very focused on turning the corner. it would be a huge mistake that this point in time to turn back the clock to the policies that got us into this economic mess

in the first place, and it would be a huge mistake to allow the status quo to prevail in the area of health care for the insurance industry holds the american people in our health care system hostage. and so this is a time to continue >> confidence in the optimism that we will be able to do it. let not turn back the clock. let recapture the same finicky -- the same policies that brought his eight years of paul -- prosperity it under the clinton administration. c>> [inaudible] >> i would say if there are two

words or three words into the "finding common ground." it to be making decisions in that regard. in regard to the excise tax that we rejected in the house, we received the good news that there had been some accommodation a right and by the white house, because this was something that the president wanted to have in the bill. he will. i think the principle is reserved. they will not fill the negative impact of that. working families and middle class and our country will not feel the negative impact that we feared. we all the way debt of gratitude to our friends in the labor movement for making this, having this interaction with the white

house because really all american working families benefited from the accommodation that has been made. that was very well-received by our members, so from there, that was one of our main issues but again, affordability. we want to do the best we can to make it affordable for the american people. that is absolutely essential to whether this bill is going to work. accountability for insurance companies with the we are talking about an exchange, a medical loss ratio, talking about the reforms we have in the house bill that we want to see in the final bill as well, talking about the challenge that some of these insurance companies will face if they raise rates in this next couple of years, then they won't be able to participate in the exchange so those accountability pieces, our members are very supportive to the vending the

waiver of mccarran-ferguson the antitrust laws for the insurance companies so those are some of the issues that have always been part of our agenda, for accountability, taking other forms, public option this are that but they are always about accountability for the health insurance. [inaudible] >> that had nothing to do with that. we were on this course of action anyway, because what we want to do is to move this legislation because i don't think the american people can wait any longer gillet it is about the assurance that they will have that we have found their common ground and that this legislation will pass though we are on the path we have always been on,

from a time standpoint. i don't know, we are going to go back to the white house and talk about some other issues this afternoon and probably have a better idea as to when we can sense something that we will send it again, when we are ready, but very optimistic but we are finding common ground, making progress on the differences but remember, 75% of these bills were very, very similar so it is just some different priorities we had in the house and senate. all of them are good. it isn't as if one is better than another. it is just establishing priorities which is our job, but we were very pleased to have such a powerful message both from our president barack obama last night on this subject and then today from president clinton. it was really a master class izzy connected health care to jobs and then to the green, dig green jobs, the jobs of the

future, and i was pleased in the debate when people were talking about retrofitting i think we came out of the meeting instead of talking about retrofitting we are talking about future fitting so in any event everyone has caught the spirit of where we want to go with this. but central to this health care. .. of this

weekend's "book tv" on c-span2. >> this week republican senator tom coburn talked to his constituents about health care at a town hall meeting in clairemoore, oklahoma. senator coburn voted against the health care legislation. this is an hour and 20 minutes.

>> welcome. it's been a while since i've had a town hall meeting here. i want to spend just a few minutes to kind of set the ground rules. i want to talk for about three  about things that i think are going on now that you need to know about. and then we're going to spend the rest of the time trying to answer your questions and get input from you. this is your town hall meeting. the whole purpose of it is to hold me accountable to what your thoughts, your thinking and your "viewpoint" is and make sure i'm aware of it. there's no questions that are off-limits. they need to be proffered in a way that is fair, but other than that, we'll take any question that comes and try to answer it as honestly and as straightforward as we can. thank you. i think our country's at a

crossroads. i'm 62 years old. i have a pretty diverse background of being a manufacturing person for 10 years and then being a medical doctor and then being in congress for six and coming back and being a medical doctor. but i don't think i've ever seen us in the position that we're in during my lifetime, since the 1940's. and i think there's a reason for that, and i think it's that we've taken our eye off the ball. we have thought in the short term. we have thought selfishly and self-centeredly, and we've forgot about, to a degree, some of the great blessings that we have through this grand experiment in democracy that we have in our country. and what we know of leadership as we study history is the best leadership is sacrificial leadership. it's leadership that says i'll put off for me so i can create for the future. and that's really been the heritage of our country is one

generation makes hard choices, sacrifices to create opportunity for the future. ♪ that's pretty good. that must be somebody's phone. [laughter] who started in that? so the goal is, what i'd like to see for my grandchildren, is for us to get back and re-embrace that quality of sacrifice that creates opportunity and creates the future. let me outline a set of numbers for you. unless we solve this set of numbers, your grandchildren don't have a future. that's how straightforward it is. if you take everybody in this country that's 25 years of age and younger and go out 20 years

from now, so they're 45 years of age and younger and their children and their grandkids, each one of those individuals will be responsible for 1,119,000 worth of real debt. that calculates at $70,000 a year per person before they paid the first taxes to run the government that we have or defend the nation. and before they ever pay for a home or a college education for their children. so that's the magnitude of the problem we find ourselves in in terms of our debt and unfunded liabilities. we can change that, we can fix that, but it's going to require tough love, hard decisions and all of us sacrificing to do that. from the very wealthy to the not so wealthy. everybody will have to participate.

and what you like and what you think is rightfully yours now may not be yours if we're going to create a future for our kids and our grandkids. so it's not about a certain philosophy, it's about how do we maintain liberty and freedom and create opportunity into the future, or do we go the way of all the rest of the republics the world has ever known? and here's what happened to them. every one of them failed. and every one of them failed over the same thing -- fiscal issues, money, is what caused them to fail. now, they may have been defeated externally, but the reason they were defeated is because they failed over fiscal issues. so that's kind of where we are. we have a lot of things. we'll talk about anything you want to talk about. we'll talk about health care if you want. but basically this is your meeting, an i'll stay until everybody's run out of questions, and then i'll drive

home to must cog guy. so who -- must coggy. so who's going to go first? i've got guys with mics somewhere around here. come on up here. we've got one right here. >> i think i have some comments. the problem with our health care industry as a whole from everything from the consumer to the provider, there's no free enterprise in that entire system. consumers don't have a choice to make a decision of what insurance company they do business with. doctors can't provide, can't choose the providers. they're forced to go with certain networks based upon the hospital decision. companies are making decisions for employees regardless of what that employee can afford. if we could ban group coverages and let each individual in this country choose his own coverage based upon his own needs and his own family's needs, if we could do away with the

insurance networks that have bullied hospitals and bullied -- they bullied the businesses and they bullied the hospitals and the providers, they ban price fixing by hospitals. hospitals are having to fix prices to counteract the networks. and let employees buy their own insurance based upon their needs. ban pre-existing conditions, because if you can't go get insurance -- i'm a cancer survivor. i can't change insurance for life right now. if i wanted to change, i can't. i've got a diabetic son. he is in the oklahoma high-risk pool, because when i left the group, they wouldn't cover him, so i had to put him in the high-risk pool. all of these have caused no free enterprise in the entire system. everybody. there is not a single person in that industry as a whole. all the way from the consumer to the provider. and absolutely no, no public

option. there should never, ever be a public option. we are a free enterprise country, not a government-run country. >> well, let me kind of -- i use different words for what you just said. i'm a practicing physician. i'll see about 10 patients tomorrow morning before i head back to tulsa to do some things. markets allocate scarce resources. now, we can either believe that or we can deny it. the assumption that they don't means our entire history belies that, that we have used markets to allocate scarce resources. and what that would really mean is we would reconnect the purchase of health care with a payment, and we don't. and so, therefore, we don't see market forces moderating costs because it's not necessarily in the economic interest of the individual to do that, because

they're not responsible for it. for every 3.5% increase in the cost of health care in this country for insurance, it costs you real wages, 2%. so if health insurance costs this last year went up 5.5%, that costs the people who have health insurance 3% real wages. now, why is there no connection? it is because other than a deductible and a co-pay, the first thing you don't see is what is the price and war the outcomes? >> can't do it. >> you can't find it. so the point is -- and that's what we had in our bill. we had transparency. we had forced transparency in terms of price. we couldn't get a vote on our bill on the senate floor. they didn't want to have that bill up for a vote because they knew it made sense. it actually is the only bill that cuts costs and issue sent advises -- incentivizes production. /@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @h

so we can either embrace our heritage, which says we've relied on markets to allocate scarce resources, or we can deny it and allow the government to run it. i think the health care bill ultimately will pass. i think they're going to buy

the votes. you saw what happened in the senate. they're going to dot exact same thing in -- do the exact same thing in the house to get the votes they need and we will have a health care bill that the president will sign. don't think it's the best answer for us as a nation. i can tell you what's in that bill. it puts the government in charge of what you'll get, when you'll get it and where you'll get it, and that's even if you have private insurance. . . .

provided you have to have some skin in the game, that is what is going to happen to you. if you do not think that is happening, go talk to oncologist today and cardiologists and ob/gyn costs and see how medicare is already rationing health care for women in this country. it is against the law. and they're doing it. markets work and we can either embrace them and say they're not going to be perfect -- no market is perfect -- which means that some people will lose. but look at medicaid. we have 17 million people in this country who are eligible for medicaid and are not signed

up. that is our answer. that is what will happen to have the people under this bill. who do we have next? back over here. let's go back there. >> keith jenkins. >> i know keith and jenkins. i grew up down the street from him. >> that is right. what is the status of the government employees? and if they kicked it out, what is the argument? >> i have the amendment added in the committee, barely, by one vote. they refused to allow that amendment on the senate floor. first of all, it is not a cute amendment.

it is common sense. if the members of congress are in it, it will be ok for everybody else. ñrthere might to take care of themselves. they refused and that is the senate rules. we were operating in a unanimous consent, which means that you have to have consent of the majority party to be able to put an amendment up and there would not put up hours. i had several amendments that did not get put up. remember, we took 2500 pages of legislation with 18 new government programs, 20,000 new federal employees, 1690 times that the hhs will control your health care and we had five true republican amendments to that over five and a half weeks. that is a crime. it is criminal. it is not that they can pass the

bill. the fact is that we ought to have the vote and know what we are voting on and make sure that you get to see what we are voting on rather than pass the çóbill without amendments. when you have five republican amendments voted on and there are five corresponding democrats to make them look good or give them political cover, that is not legislating. that isñiçó not fair to the amen public. whether you are for a government-run health care system or not, it is terrible government. who's next? back over here. this lady right here. hang on. he's going to bring you a mikc. >> is there a chance that this bill can be held unconstitutional? >> did everybody your question? first of all, from a constitutional point of view, of whether or not the government can force you to buy something,

that has a very good chance of being ruled unconstitutional. that is number one. it is highly unlikely that a pro tem lawsuit will have standing under the commerce clause, in regards to whatever senator nelson it or senator lantern or anything else that is discriminatory. you raise a great point. when we started losing its most as a country was when the supreme court decided a very little and broad interpretation of the commerce clause. if you go back and read what our founders had to say in article 1 section 8, the enumerated powers, which spells out specifically what the role of the federal government does, it does not fit at all with what we have been doing in the last 30 years in this country. it does not fit. yet we have used court precedent to justify ignoring the wisdom

of our founding fathers. consequently, we have this ever- expanded federal government that is fairly arrogant, poorly responsive, and very expensive. the way to change that is to reinforce the 10th amendment which says that, whenever is not spelled out in article 1 section 8, is explicitly reserved for the people in the state's and use that as a tool to give courts to go back and reinforce the enumerated powers. it is going to be interesting. our survival, what causes us to look at the waist and the federal government and the areas where the federal government touches us and is arrogant and not helpful, and many times harmful, and see if we cannot strengthen the size of government to more manageable.

>> thank you. i would like to say thank you for coming out. i took off work tonight. i appreciate you being here to answer this question. i have been without health insurance for close to 10 years. i'm self-employed. i pay state and federal taxes which provides for other people's health-care. because of the hard economic times coupled with the passage of payment personal care, i cannot afford insurance for me and my son. i had hoped that would be allowed to buy into other programs that are federally funded, but that has been ne ixed. this is my question. why do not want me to have health care? if you do want me to have health care, water use specifically doing to get it for me?

>> i want you to have health care available for you. i want a good portion of that responsibility to be yours, not everybody else's in this room. all right, all right. what i would tell you we should do is we should change the tax code so that everybody is treated exactly the same. if you work for a business that provides health insurance, you get $5,700 worth of benefits, tax-wise. but if you do not work for someone that does, you get $4,700 worth of benefits, tax- wise. how does that benefit you? tax in this country.le type of it would automatically give you and your family $5,700 tax-free with which to purchase health care. i would also say that you can buy it anywhere you want to buy.

and you can buy what you want, which is good for you and your children, not what some bureaucrat or a state legislator or federal legislator says you have to buy. i believe that we can achieve that kind of care where you have the opportunity to have health care, you have the funds with which to do it, and we do not raise taxes one penny on the rest of the american people. we can do that. we would save $1 trillion in the first 10 years under that plan. that takes all medicaid patients and puts them into private health interests at half the cost that the state is presently spending on medicaid. that saves oklahoma about two billion dollars a year. is there a way for you to get health insurance that does not grow the federal government, that does not increase the spending of $1 trillion, that does not raise taxes over the next 10 years, that does not

cut medicare? yes. i just outlined it. the area -- there are a lot of ways to get health care for everybody. one involves a helluva lot more government and the other one involves not more government so that you are treated the same as someone who works. the senate -- the self-employed person should get the same rate as somebody who works for a company that is provided health insurance. and you do not. >> [unintelligible] >> what you're saying is that you want government to manage the cost of health insurance. you ought to be able to go to market -- u.s. bows earlier that you believe in a market-oriented -- you espoused earlier that you believe in a market-oriented

government. if you want to buy it in kentucky because it is cheaper for you and you get the same coverage, you ought to be able to do it. the same thing is true for providers. the should be able to provide insurance to anyone they want, as long as they have quality and transparency in their outcome and their profit. >> yes, sir. you have añi microphone coming o you. >> my name is terry miller. i love this country, i can tell you that. made the credit disabled vietnam veteran. in oklahoma, we spend a lot of money on thean awful lot of thi. in recent correspondence, you completely ignored four double blind placebo studies in combination with the american medical association's recent

change on their position on medical marijuana -- the stand is that jailing pot smokers is idiocy and a bad use of resources. [applause] has that changed your views? it has the same expensive, violent, and socially detrimental effectsçó of failed alcohol prohibition. >> the answer to your question is no. has not changed my viewpoint, not at all. there is not one study in the medical literature that shows smoking marijuana is beneficial for you more than the active ingredient in a pill. why do people want to smoke marijuana? why do they want to smoke marijuana? if we are going to legalize

marijuana, let's legalize cocaine. let's legalize heroin. you can have all of the studies. the american medical association represents 10% of the dodgerdocs practicing in america and it is on the hard left. there is no study that i am aware of -- and i tried to read them all -- that shows a positive benefit of the active ingredient being inhaled vs taken through a pill. i would be happy to take the copies and look at them. [applause] i do not think we ought to incarcerate pot smokers. i never espoused that. but i don't think we ought to decline the standards to where we just go on and degrade. if you look at what happens to our young people with marijuana, look at the studies -- what happens to them? it leads to other drug

addictions. >> [unintelligible] >> the da has a political point. @@@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @y is disturbing. i look at my personal freedom and my personal liberty and that

is what i choose to do. if i choose to go to mcdonald's every day, i suggest to do that. if i choose to smoke cigarettes every day, i choose to do that. why can i not responsibly enjoy smoking marijuana? >> hang on. easyñi answer. can you go out and to drive 85 miles per hour where it is posted 65? >> no. >> why not? >> i could kill someone. >> well -- >> [unintelligible] >> what is the cost of incarceration in this country? >> in oklahoma, it was $5 million. it does not harm anyone else on the road. >> you cannot back that up at all.

no, you cannot. hold on. we're going to keep in order. if the speed limit is 65 miles per hour, you cannot go 85 miles per hour. there's a limit on your liberty. you have the privilege of going on the highway. >> [unintelligible] >> you might kill somebody at 65 m.p.h. the point is that you are not being responsible. the question is at what level do we let the pure libertarian view go? i am not a pure libertarian. i am a constructive constitutionalists. there's a difference between me and yu. >> i do not think there is. >> there is a role for limits in the federal government. that is why i am adamantly pro- life.

i think there's a limit that says you should not kill somebody because you are smoking pot and have poured judgment as to drive down the road. >> [unintelligible] >> it does not matter. first of all, you do not know that because we have not spent the money to study it. the point is that i am not changing on illegal drugs. we have enough problems with the illegal drugs we have today in terms of destroying families and i am not going to change. [applause] is this another marijuana question? [laughter] >> are you assuming that because i am young? [laughter] >> no, there are a lot of people my age who still smoke pot. >> first, i want to commend you on making the democrats recall

730 pages. [applause] i think it is very important that senators know what they are voting on. i am a college student. i will be graduating very soon. right now, i am covered on my parents' health insurance until i'm 23 years old. currently, with the senate bill, i will be there forced to buy my own health insurance or pay a fine if i do not. i have a point in my life where i do not think -- i plan to go to graduate school and will not be covered by my parents -- i will not be able to afford health insurance on my own. >> under the current bill, this does not start for two years or three years. your first year is $75. but it cranks all the way up to

$2,000 per family. but here's the problem. are you guilty? -- argue healthy? -- are you healthy? he is young and highly unlikely that he will have a major health problem or maybe something that is taxes related. why should he not be able to go anywhere in this country and get a $10,000 deductible for about $800 a year? he cannot. we have prohibited it. that is what is the idea behind matching it with your diabetic son and i am a cancer survivor* two. you want to be able to buy what you need and based on what your true factors are. you cannot do that today. when we started medical savings account -- i came home and put every employee in my medical

practice in that. now they have thousands upon thousands of dollars in their health savings account. but in the state of oklahoma will not let them buy a high enough deductible policy that will allow them to afford a policy. if they could buy a $25,000 policy at a very cheap price and they had a $10,000 saved, that gives them a total exposure of $15,000. nobody should lose their home. nobody should file bankruptcy. we can do that without putting the government in charge. when philosophy says that the government will run it. the other is that we will use what built this country and have transplant markets and in force that as we create better health care. the danger in our health care today is that we are going to take what is admirably the best

in the world and put it at risk to fix what is wrong with a portion of it. >> [unintelligible] >> yes. ñrçó>> all right, who's next? >> bob shorts from broken arrow. i dropped everything and came here and 30 minutes. >> you did not get a ticket? [laughter] >> thank you for what you are doing, washington, d.c. i do not know how you're doing it. do you ever feel like a voice lost in the wilderness? i have written you a lot of letters. i am sorry i had to do that. i cannot believe what is going on. there are a lot of angry people in this country. i travel all over the country. i have a motor home and i am retired and i talk to people. there are a lot of angry people

out there. in any event, thank you for answering my letters. i wrote you a letter asking how many federal prisons you think we will have to have when people do not pay the premium if the health care gets passed and go to jail. there will be a lot of people in jail. on a humorous note, i wrote you a letter asking you to run nancy pelosi out of town on a rail. how come you have not done that? [applause] i do not expect an answer to that. that is just a little humorous note. >> just so you'll know, i read every letter we get. it takes a lot of time. that is why it takes time to get back to you. i have people reading letters every day, but i want to read them. they did not get elected, i did.

when you don't get a response, it is not because one is not coming. it is slow because i am slow. i am going to read them and make sure that the answer is what i think and not some 24-year-old. [applause] i want to address the issue he raised. our country is worried today. we should be. we have millions of people out of work. we have a government regulatory scheme that failed to check the excess of the financial markets. that was not the president's fault. that was the congress's fault. everybody blames everything on president obama or president bush. it is not the president. they cannot do without congress. it is congress. we have to hold congress accountable. we have to do is restore confidence that what we see in washington is about our best

long-term interest as a nation, not what is in our best short term political expedient interest. what has to happen is that we have to start seeing the hard votes taken or take the people out of office that are not willing to make those hard choices. that is how you will restore the confidence and it does not mean that right or left is more correct than the other. what is more important now is restoring the confidence and having an honest debate about differences, rather than playing games like we saw in the health- care bill or the gotcha politics of going after harry reid because he said something offhanded that he apologized for and saying that that is the big issue of the day. survival of our republic is the big issue of the day and a responsive limited federal government that is accountable is the big issue of the day.

we need to keep focused on what is important and the anger will go way it the confidence returns. but we have to restore the confidence. that is through open and honest dialect and honest disagreement. my wife does not agree with 20% of the stuff that i do in washington. i don't expect you to. i have lived with her for 40 years. hee able to change her. i do not expect you to agree with everything. but i do expect to do have me give an honest debate. if i cannot do that, i should not be here. we ended up over here. no, we were over there. ok, somebody on this side. >> senator, i am can piercken p. i am a small businessman and

lost just about everything with the economy lately. i want to thank you for being here and all that you did. i would like to know that, it the republican party -- let me make one more comment. i have always been a republican. i am a conservative republican. i prefer not to be referred to as a patriotic american. i would like to know of the republican party has cultivated and is capable of constructing and executing another contract with america? that is what it is going to take to help turn this thing around. [applause] >> let me put you in perspective of where i am. and i think i am where you are. i am an american first.

i happen to align with the republican party because, in their platform, there is more of what i believe and then in the other party's platform. but what we're seeing is the lack of effective leadership in both parties. we are. it has been for a number of years. and there are some seniors in here -- medicare part d, how many of you pay for that? no, young people are paying for that. we are charging that to your grandkids. who put that through? the republicans. right? so we took and added another $12 trillion in unfunded liabilities for our kids so we could say and that we looked good for one election. that is the real truth of it. are we going to be intellectually honest about what our real problems are and approach them and not from a

partisan standpoint but from a common-sense standpoint and a recognition that we cannot borrow our way out of debt and we cannot spend our way into prosperity. 43 cents of every dollar that we spent this last year was borrowed. did you realize that? out of every dollar that we spend, 43 cents was barred. -- was borrowed -- borrowed money that our kids will pay back. this is what i told the independent groups out there. do not levy politician correct you. you can change our country. individual -- do not let a politician the corrupt you. you can change your country. individual people can change our country. [unintelligible]

if we remember is that, whether you are on the hard left or the hard right, we will solve the problems that okr@@@@@g@ @ @ @ b every corner to come in and hurt us? how does that relate? it does not. we are off base. we need real leadership to get

us back on base. come back up here because we have some up front. who had their hands up? right here. >> i am jim reeves from chelsea. can you estimate how much we can reduce our overall health care costs if we could get some risible tort reform to get your malpractice insurance down -- reasonable tort reform to get your malpractice insurance down? >> there is a range. we really do not know the answer. we think that between 4% and 6% of the cost of health care is related to defensive medicine. there is a good steady out on that. if, in fact, you had it where you did not have a litigious angle, that you really covered people who work to lee -- who

were truly injured and you had a special arbitration panel and you did not have doctors ordering tests that patients did not need, that would save about $120 billion a year. ok? that is more than this health care bill raises in taxes. then you had to the $100 billion worthñr of medicare fraud a year and your at $220 billion. then your incentivize for paying more for prevention treatments and you can save another hundred $20 billion. so now we are at $340 billion and we haveçó done three simple things, none of which are in the bill. ñiall right, next. over here. right back there. >> thank you for coming.

i have two questions. one, i would like to know what the coverage for prosthetics will be in this bill. the second question i have is, if this bill was passed and we vote the democrats out and give the power back to the republicans, are you willing to spearheaded the removal of this law and repeal it? >> to answer your first question, i do not know what the coverage limits or expansions are for orthotics in this bill. i would be happy to take that as a question and did you contact. connie, where are you? this young lady will help you get an answer to that. if this bill passes, the soonest it can be reversed a 2015. which means it will now be reversed. -- it will not be reversed. you have to get past 2012 and a veto and that would require 67 votes in the senate.

republicans have never had 67 votes in the senate. it is highly unlikely that, once passed, it will be reversed. right down here. >> thank you, senator for taking a stand. we really appreciate that. i have to questions. internationally, the president seems very willing to turn in our economy over to a global lilist agenda. do you foresee this as a threat to the constitution and our freedoms? >> i am not sure i agree with your assumption i am not happy with some of the foreign policy and some of what i see. i do not think that cap and trade will get near being passed in the senate. there's always a danger when you

rely on other people's opinion rather than the core belief that we as americans have, which is manifested in their constitution. when you are more interested in what form people think then you are of the principles that will keep us free, i think that is dangerous. but i do not think that is just president obama. i think that we have seen that in all presidents in different times. i am not as worried because i think their checks and balances are working. i am more worried about this crazy idea that we are going to treat terrorists as law-abiding citizens and give them the same rights that you and i have rather than treat them as prisoners of war. [applause] that is what worries me. >> my second it is in regards to energy independence. in recent years, the oilfieldçó has been in montana [unintelligible]

i am hearing that it is eight times the proven reserves of saudi arabia. do believe there's political will to lead to energy independence and economic growth? >> there is political will, but there i-- but it is not in congress. this administration is anti- energy. they are making it hard for everybody at every step, unless you want to do something that is subsidized by the government like wind farms or something else. but to use our coal and natural gas and oil and take advantage of that which would save us $2 billion a year in the trade deficit, this administration is very much against that. one of the first thing that the interior department did was withdraw leases offshore.

we have a lot of them. we have a lot of natural energy that we can utilize and we can do it safely and clearly if we had a government that would allow was to do it. that has to change. what will happen is that the price of energy will continue to go up. economically, there will come a point when we cannot sell more bonds. it would be smart for us to plan today. it will pay greater dividends in terms of marketability to [unintelligible] query? right here. -- where are we? right here. >> thank you. i have met with you and spoken with you in the past.

i have a question concerning iran could in 1979, when what i consider one of the biggest foreign policies in post-world war ii, we hung out the shot to dry. -- we hung out of the shah to drive. -- we hung out the shah to dry. [unintelligible] we had the protests in iran where they did not get any iota of support from the western world to try to support them.

have you been able to move anything in the senate or have any of your colleagues in the senate been able to do anything to try to provide support for the iranian counter- revolutionary people? >> the only thing that we have been able to do and probably pass was and iran sanction tax. it is in the senate and in the house. this is an example of incompetent and inefficient government. for radio free america, we have what is called the broadcasting board of governors. they are political appointees. i think there are five members, 3 and 2. we put people who were incompetent on that board.

the message is going throughout the world to not espoused the policies of america. they attack the policies of america many times. we have an agenda that everything that is wrong in the world is america's fault rather than that there are other bad people in the world and they have nothing to apologize for. we still do not have a full complement of directors on the broadcasting board of directors. but the people that ought to be on there are people who are knowledgeable in broadcast and factual journalism, not the bias. the board of governors was designed by vice president biden. what we saw was something that should have never been political become politicized and then incompetent.

the reason why we have not had an effective voice in the middle east, it in iran especially, is because error message is not a clear message about freedom. it is not a clear message about the news of the day, the unfettered use of the day, not propaganda, but real news. we have been in confident in our management of this $50 million to $70 million of money per year. when i first went to washington, i got some of the farsi language translated and i was appalled at what we were putting into iran, talking about how bad america was. it was our own rail stations putting that in. that has not been solved yet. -- that was our own radio stations putting that in. beckham has not been solved yet -- that has not been solvedñi y.

who's next? there she is. >>ñi ñris there any way that, through congress, some of the approvals that the president signed into law can be controlled, like the recent written permission that president obama gave for interpol to be involved in our country? >> there is oversight, which we failed to do and take effective -- i am not as concerned about ñr-- we use interpol all the tie now. i hope you are aware of that. ñrwe are a part ofñi interpol. we rely on them. forced to truly rely on them, we need them to rely on us -- for

us to truly rely on them, we need them to rely on us. the question is whether we will lose data to the wrong people. your question comes about because you do not trust us to be affected managers of what we're doing, right? we are not. we have given you lots of examples of why we are not. think about it. do we share information with the royal navy? yes. do you worry about that? do you worry about it? >> [unintelligible] çó>> all i want you to do is gea balanced source of news. i listen to fox, too. butñr you have to balance the source of news that you get to give perspective. fox is not right all the time and neither is bill o'reilly and

neither are a lot of them, but neither is the other side. here's what i do every day just so you will know. i read "the washington post" and in " the washington journal." i didn't think we have given up any sovereignty in our agreement with interpol. we have gone to the point where -- we were alienated -- where are first judgment is to doubt whether or not to have confidence. we need to turn that around. we need to do that by modeling confidence so that we can develop confidence so that your first thought is not that they're going to do something wrong, but that they are going to do something right. we have created that through the years with the federal

government. the federal government's action with us is that you're guilty until you can prove yourself @@@@%grr@ @ kñ4@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ educated about the fair tax who did not think it was a great idea.

>> the fair tax markedly will help us as a country. what the fair tax does is make us competitive worldwide onñi te things that we manufacture in this country. it takes the taxes off of what we manufacture and they are not applied until they are sold in this country. if they are sold out of this country, there is no tax. what thata5 means is that almot everything we manufacture in this country in the world market becomes 19% cheaper. think about that. if you want to create jobs, create jobs that way. the more you consume, the more tax you pay. we have an upside down tax code. nobody knows what is right. people are accosted by bureaucracy. if you went to six different offices with the answer is, you get six different answers.

the fair taxes that everybody pays the same thing on everything you buy except for certain things and everybody gets a rebate for the basic necessities of life, food, medicine, shelter, etc., so that you get a credit. the wealthy were -- the wealthier you are, the more you spend, more taxes you pay. the less wealthy work, the less you spend, the less tax to pay. it would create more investment and more jobs and more manufacturing and more markets and build our economy and restores the thing that we have lost the most, which is manufacturing jobs and allows money to be invested in capital for innovation that will keep us ahead of the rest of the world. nobody can out-working americans if we put it up and said it upright. i think the fair tax is a great

way and i would love to get rid of the thousands upon thousands of federal employees whose main job is to say that you are not doing it right. we can put them into a much more productive jobs that actually produces something other than fines on your income tax. right there. he is coming to you. >> at that you're going to say something bad to me. >> from your side, you're on the hard left. [laughter] >> first of all, i want to thank you for taking care of me when i got a letter from social security that notified me that my social security check was cut off and was not going to get any more money into allied paid back all of the extra money that i had been overpaid.

i called your office. in about 45 minutes, i had a word from you, from your office, telling me to go to tulsa and there would be a $1,000 check waiting for me plus all the money that i was due would be on my next check. i want to thank you for that. you are our congressman now. [applause] i think that you and if you more in washington are the only ones who have said enough to be up there. [applause] our country is in one heck of a mess. the debt and everything is going against us.

all this health care stuff, that was going to be transparency. obama said that he would have that on cnn news and everybody would get to watch what was wñi va9ûiñ;ozjoóñhty)w[ñ out who was trying to support the insurance companies and he was trying to look out for us. but i have not seen any of it. i watch cnn. >> actually, it was c-span. >> yes. >> you have to get around to a question. >> right. i have to have a question. [laughter] really, the only question i have is to continue to do what you are doing in there and not let that a bunch takeover our country and ruin it. that is what they are after. all this stuff and taking these people out and terrorists given the same rights as citizens is

stupid and somebody needs to really get after them up there. >> plainly said. [applause] on this side, in the back. you all feel free to go if you need to go. i told you i would stay here until we ran out of questions and i will. >> i work in the industry -- in the energy industry. i think you made a statement a while back about waxman markey, about being dead on arrival. do you still hold to that? my next question is, the other side of that, the epa is currently formulating a lot of new regulations that can come to bear basically like waxman marquee. you have any words on that? >> i think that cap and trade or something similar to waxman markey is dead in the senate and rightly so. health care is small compared to

what they were going to do with the cap and a trade bill. the epa, in terms of the regulations of co2 and the energy industry, shows you a problem of lazy legislators. one of the things that i fight all the time -- which i do not weigh in much on -- is that i do not think we ought to be vague and let the bureaucrats decide the answers. we get paid to decide the answers. the sale of these bills passed where there are no specifics. what that tells you is that we don't know what we are doing and we cannot write the specifics. if we do not know what we're doing, then why are we passing a law in the first and place. the epa is were we have given someone massive power to have oversight on us and have a major impact on american citizens without the benefit of elected officials do and what they should have done. that is just like what got us

into the financial problems with fannie mae and freddie mac and the mortgage industry that will lead to get out of control because we incentivize them and did not know what we were doing and we created this financial nightmare. the congress did that. do not let anybody tell you that presidents did that. congress did it. and they incentivized greed in the mortgage industry. consequently, we lead a world downfall on the basis of what congress failed to do on basically something we knew was a problem because it was not popular to fix it. all right, last question over here. >> i live here in claremore. i feel better about the problems we had a few worry full-time senator instead of a part-time

doctor. medicare may be not the best in the world. the british -- the bush administration did not do nothing. >> let me answer your first comment. i practice medicine 6:00 the morning until 9:00. >> that is not good. >> the problems we have should take a full-time senator. >> let me tell you something, i worked 20 more hours than you do a week. if i practiced three hours of medicine on my own time, when you are in bed, that should not be a problem with you. [applause] this is the thing about me practicing medicine.

the positive thing about me practicing medicine is that it to reconnect me with real people, not politicians and lobbyists. [applause] and i get to see real problems of real people that i get in my mind. so when i am in washington, it is not an esoteric. it is about real people. one of the things that our founders thought and believed and wrote was that we ought to have a citizen legislators, not a career professional legislators. [applause] as to your second point, bush did not create the oil industry problems. >> [unintelligible] >> no, congress did not fix it and the republicans did not fix it and the democrats did not thinfix it.

the politicians did not fix it because they were more interested in what looks good rather than hard oversight. [applause] that is what is going on. it is our fault. >> is not my fault. >> powerful, the people in congress. the way you fix that is that you throw us all out and you get people in there with real experience. >> [unintelligible] [laughter] >> i tell you what you want to do. you want to run against me. [applause] [laughter] if you feel that you are not getting your money's worth, that i am now leading, that i am not working hard, that i am not attacking the problems instead of parties -- and you can ask anyone in congress -- i am not partisan battle. if you say you believe something, you want to enact on it rather than just say it.

what is great about our republic is that you can fix it. just to rurun. back over here. closest to you. >> thank you for standing as up -- for standing up for us in washington. the present administration is forgetting job creation through small business. i do not think that a lot of small businessmen need loans as they need people who work in this country to not fear they will lose their job. people will not buy big-ticket items if they do not think they have a way for paying thefor th. >> i think the president has gotten that message. i think you will see some positive things coming out of the administration that will incentivize real job creation. it will restore confidence.

it is now psychological. if you are worried about whether you will have a job three months from now, you will not put in money on credit. there is a psychological aspect as well as the jobs program. i am worried about the potential of not efficient stimulus bill. i would rather see the $800 billion, instead of transferring payments to the government, but fixing the bridges and the roads and the military and doing the pipelines and trains and transportation that we have that we will pay more for in the future. if we buy them now, we will save a lot of money. over here.

>> i and james jackson from sepulveda. >> you drove a long ways to get here. >> i was laughing at this man here talking about you being a part-time politician and a part- time doctor. i just got out of the hospital down here. i got about $6,000 worth of hospital bills. the insurance says it is not covered. i am not going to worry about that. but that brought me back to a little story i heard not long ago. this guy went into the hospital and the doctor sent him a great big bill. a couple of months later, the doctors motorcycle went down and he took it down there and the mechanics fixed it. when he got the bill, he told the doctor, you know, how come

you can make $5,000 a day and i can only get $50 working on his motorcycle? tde@@@@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @

there is a lot of people that are on social security. my insurance premiums went up 120% this year. >> that is your supplemental medical policy. you might get a different policy. >> i did. i just got a letter in the mailbox telling me they were sure glad that they have the opportunity to be my insurance company and all that.

>> one think you should do if you have that bill and supplemental insurance, is you should contact my office to help straighten that out. ñrif in fact you that is supplemental policy, how long were you in a hospital? you need our help. >> i had a stroke about 10:45. the let me out the next day about 9:00. i was not in their 24 hours. >> you call our office in tulsa. >> i went to my insurance company. why are all these older people didn't get cost-of-living raises this year?

car manufacturers, big insurance companies keep this -- keep their homes. you cannot help the people. >> i will give you the answer. if there is a decline in the cpi, you have no cut in your social security. last year, they cpi was down about 2.3%. if we did it fair and we paid you more when it was going up, then we should take it away when it is going down. but we do not do that. the reason there is no increase is because the actual cost of living went down 2.3%.

if you look at the numbers, that is what it did last year. >> it cost me more for it 10- pound sack of potatoes this year. >> you have been eating too many potatoes. somebody take the microphone away from them. last question. over here. >> thank you for being here, senator coburn. if you were in charge of foreign policy, how would you deal with the house of cards that is pakistan? r' charge, iñd create energy inaendence as part of our foreign policy. that is the first thing i would do. [applause]

çóñiis second thing i would do s analysis of whether we can affect the region of pakistan and afghanistan. ñixdif you cannot, what you havo do is encircled it and content relevant influenced it. i am not sure right now based on what i know, and i will be making a trip late this winter to afghanistan and pakistan, i am not sure what the answer is there. i am not sure what we're proposing is right. it may be right. i do not have a military background. but what i do know is if we're not going to go and when, let's not go. if we are going to go, let's go and kicks to make sure that if we have to make sacrifice of american blood, it is done in

the quickest, most effective way so we accomplish a goal that is measurable and we know we can exit. [applause] all right. we have one right here. this lady has been very patient. ñr>> i was beginning to think yu had something against me. my first question is related tor something you said a while back when you were answering the lady about the cause and whether health care legislation could be deemed unconstitutional. you said the courts decided, had made decisions that have expanded the commerce clause and that that had taken our country backwards. my question, and correct me if i'm wrong, wasn't the commerce

clause of the basis for the court's decisions which said there cannot be public discrimination based on race? >> i am not an attorney so i cannot answer that. my relation to the commerce clause is this. if you read what our founders said adopted commerce clause, especially what madison said, that is not what it meant. it is the ability for the federal government to expand beyond the scope of article 1, section 8. the equal protection clause is what gives us the civil rights that we have today as well as many other abilities. we settled the aspect of the

commerce clause in the civil war and the issue of whetherñiñu could violate someone's civil rights as a state and the immune from that. xdñiñiçótake public education gs 80% of what you do in public education is mandated by the federal government. did you think most people in the bureaucracy know anything about how to teach your kids and what is best in oklahoma? if you correlate the involvement of the federal government, the worst the outcome is. we're making decisions away from the action. ñi>> can you tell me about the status of the dream act? çóhas been introduced? would you supported? ñi>> i did not support it. what you're telling people who are here illegally as the

children of people who came illegally that we will give you an advantage that we do not give legal aliens. and so i am on record as supporting the rights of children who came here as children of illegal immigrants to say that they are as american as my kids. i do not have any problem with that. i do not believe we create a special act for people who have a benefit that other people do not have who are born here. >> if i live in oklahoma, under the dream act, i can go to

arkansas and demand state tuition. that is what the dream access, you have to give the state tuition. the federal government is going to tell the state of only -- state of oklahoma who they have to give tuition to? it is a continuation of what we are doing. let me tell you something, the federal government, most of the time, does not know best. [applause] i am not a supporter. i will vote against the dream act. >> not all illegal aliens are hispanic. i did not say that and i did not imply it. i am saying the people who pushed the dream act [inaudible] >> it is not dependent on which they can get tuition. >> is written in the dream act

mandating state tuition. >> but they would have access just like everyone else. sex no, they would have greater access under the dream act. -- >> no, they would have greater access. you cannot do it if you are a u.s. citizen and live -- you are born in oklahoma. you cannot get tuition in arkansas. let's go back and talk about the point. the reason we have trouble with illegal immigration, the vast majority of them are lovely people. we need to control the borders. that is a failure of the federal government. it is not a failure of state governments. then we have people who are here

legally, and 4% of the people who come through our southern border are not hispanics at all, they are middle eastern. ñia large portion of them have a different agenda than are hispanic brothers and sisters coming across the southern border. a very much different agenda. again, the way we restore confidence is to control the border. then we can solve the problems we have with the illegal aliens that are here. [applause] i really want to go home to supper. we will take one more question from over here, and that will be our last question. >> i understand that the government passed a law that says fairly soon, only the

government is going to be able to get student loans. x that is true, it has not been passed yet, but the regulations have been written by the department of a education. >> what is the point of only the government controlling student loans? i am sure that politically they have a reason, and i wanted to know what it is. >> i cannot answer your question right now. i have known it at one time, but i have forgotten it. there are profits to be made in the private loan education business. part of it is to drive against that. the second is the clarity of control. arne duncan would like to see all that in one place, one stop, one shot, and no differences across the country. that is some of the reasoning.

i am sure that is not the most pertinent answer. the real question is, why does the cost of education keep rising like it has? we ought to ask that question. care is. what is the reason for that? we ought to be asking those questions to get at the source of the cost of college education. in all have heard something here tonight that you do not agree with. you ought to e-mail me. this gentleman that was sitting right here, e-mail me and tell me why and what. i will gladly read them. the only way we fix our country is to have a transparent, open process where you can see what

is going on and hold us accountable for what is going on. you can see what i am doing. i put it on the web site. you can see me on the floor. there is no motive other than i think our government is way out of control. it is way too big and costs way too much. what i am trying to do is eliminate the waste, fraud, and abuse. i will leave you with one thought. freedom is a precious thing. it is not ours by inheritance alone. it is never guaranteed. it must be fought for and defended by each generation. those are not my words. those are the words of ronald reagan. he was not talking to our troops. he was talking to the regular citizens, saying you have to fight to stay free. you have to hold people accountable and push back. that is what i internships and academic

seminars. it is just over one hour. ♪ >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen. i am the senior program manager

for academic seminars with the washington center for internships and academic seminars here in washington d.c. for over 30 years we have had over 42,000 alumni come through our internships program in washington d.c. where we place students with substantial internships in coalition with academic courses and additional programming that turns them full-time credit at their home institutions. we currently work with over 850 colleges and institutions from the country and worldwide. our web site is www.twc.edu. the students we have here today are all purchase vince in a two week seminar called, "inside washington." this week we are focusing on politics and the media. they represent 60 different colleges and universities and we are happy to have them here.

we have two panels this morning. first, a panel sponsored by a partner with the washington center, the graduate school for political management here at george washington university. they will be hosting this panel on a new media. i want to introduce you to the moderator in the center seat and allow him to introduce his panel. he works at the graduate school the university and works in new media and marketing. he's the founder of p oliticsunder30.org. he is in charge of the politics on-line conference this year. two years ago bryce was in one of these seats as part of " insider washington 2008." he is a long like you will be in

a matter of hours. -- he is an alum. >> how is everyone doing this morning? we are here at the graduate school of political management at george washington university four blocks from the white house in the center of politics. what will we talk about this morning? we are going to talk about new media and it is a wide subject. what i thought i would do is that i would start out with the landscape. today, as americans, we have access to over one trillion web sites. just on your iphone alone, you have access to 65,000 apps. every minute, according to youtube,m there are 20 hours of video a bloated every minute. -- 20 hours of the uplo --

upload. the average teen texts 2,272 times per month. there are two million emails cents per day and i that 90% are spam. . .

.

this is the center of online politics today. there are a lot of parameters that constrain whitehouse.gov. talk about the parameters. >> thanks for the invitation. this is something that i have a passion for. i think oftentimes, because it is so new, it reminds people that i mourn the first director at the white -- that i was the first director at the white house. president obama has the ability to become the first social media president.

as the figure out what all that means, what happens on line is different than what happens in the .com properties. there are rules and regulations that govern how one can communicate with constituents. one of the challenges -- when i was there from 2005 to 2007, youtube was founded in 2005. twitter was not yet around. it was fairly new. facebook was limited to those that had college e-mail addresses. you had to be a member of a college or higher education institution to be on the network. we were monitoring all these things. we did not know how it applied to governing, because it was so new. although youtube was founded in 2005, it was not until google purchased its that the google changed in 2006.

in 2008, youtube surpassed yahoo! as the second most highest ranked search engine. people were going to you to before yahoo! or other sites. -- youtube before yahoo! or other sites. we were the get that to find a way to leverage it without violating policies. questions like, we can pose things 2 facebook -- in terms of engaging with people on facebook, they are trying to figure out other ways to archive that so four or eight years from now we can ship it over to the archive so it'll be there for decades and generations to come. >> i wanted to jump in. i wanted to challenge one thing

you said about the white house -- whitehouse.gov being the center of the political universe. i do not know that it is. a lot is made about the restraints on official government websites. it is much different than your able to do on the campaign. tabloids were coming down every night it 6:30 p.m. it is completely different. it still cut abc and cbs doing their thing to get the media. people forget that. it is not as bad off as some people may get out to be. it is splintered. you have the cable networks. you can have joe smith come out of college. when did you can grab a camera and start posting things on the youtube.

-- one of you can grab a camera and start posting things on you too. -- youtube. you are out there. a can be read. it can be heard. the center of the political universe is not whitehouse.gov. every single our people are checking it out. it is constantly being updated at cnn and cnn television around the world. websites i've politico -- like politico. our member as a kid watching white house coverage. he was always shouting with a booming voice. he was shouting and ronald reagan -- at ronald reagan.

when it came to washington as a young reporter, a ted koppel was roasti@@ d@@@ m@ n#@ @ @ @

>> help in this world where you can go 50 million places for your information, how are campaigns going to cut through that reached? >> it is an excellent question. what you will see is and are already seeing is a campaign tousing not just one but a two hopefuls. every year there seems to be a new tool or what you need to have a presence on. facebook is the only social network. you need to have profiles on multiple social networks like twitter. it did not exist a few years ago. now it is an essential tool. they are seeing these different adages to get information out there. they are realizing that each

present a unique opportunity. a twitter accounts will not allow you to deliver great policy views. youtube allows you to deliver a big deal a couple minutes long, giving you a great variety of information. whether it is the campaign or at the white house, you are seeing these different avenues. what is interesting is what will exist in a couple of years ago to give one example, the mcdonald's campaign in virginia. he was republican. he used to drive all the social networking. that is in contrast with the obama campaign, which had tried to make its own website. it did not exist at that time. as you see these larger campaigns try out new tools, the ones that work will be adapted

by smaller campaigns. that goes all the way down to the county level. >> if you are advising a perfect until campaign, how much of your resources do you put into in new media? >> that is a tough argument. so many campaigns feel they would rather have money to get by. a lot spent immediately. a lot to spend on television advertising. historically, the online politics community really has struggled to get resources within the campaign. there are also human resources. to update all of the site into engage people in the real one-

on-one conversations on line that they need to -- i think it'll be really hard to figure out where to focus the time and resources. i do not think there is one right answer. i think that most people have realized now that it is one to take a lot more effort, a lot more manpower, and a lot more money. i think they are going to turn to younger people and people in college who are willing to put in a lot of hard work who are savvy with the technology into are really engaged in the political world. the a good to step up and fill -- they are going to step up and fill those roles. >> what is changing, because i was working in the private sector building web sites for members of congress, is that new media people have more of a seat at the table. the first cycle they are putting

of a press release and putting it on the web. the weatherperson would receive the e-mail, pose the website come and be damned. -- the web person would receive the e-mail, post it on the website, and the done. they grew the power. the folks on the new media's i became more involved in the decision. the concept of putting it in a separate but it is the wrong way to go. it should be woven into everything you are doing. you are reading people in various ways. people will say, how do you reach the audience? what do you do? are you on twitter? are you on facebook? do you read blogs? 90% of the people may go to the web. there also linking the mainstream media there. there was a new study that reported that.

in terms of the level of credibility, your campaign manager should also be your new media manager. one note about the haiti thing, we are talking about mobile technology. my friend worse for the red cross. i am sure you have seen the text "haiti" to 90999. they have raised $5 million as of 7:00 last night through that mobile campaign. the ability to raise money online has had a huge impact on campaigns. what we may be seeing is a shift of money from traditional advertising and maybe toward other types of technology. >> we see it in campaigns as well. the republicans did a big

internet push and raise something like $1.3 million in a 24-hours. the democrats also have a lot of money. he made a big impact there. not only was it money he could spend in the final week, but it created news stories that maybe there is some momentum there. now there is a poll saying he is up four points. not a lot people heard of him. maybe there is some momentum here. >> switching a little bit from these professional brands of a candidate or business to the individual. this is open to anyone. talk to the young person out there who need to build their personal brand. what should they be doing to build the brand? what should they be doing to defend and maintain the brand? >> i think a piece of it is the issue of trust.

there is a fabulous researcher at mit who looks at how people build activities and trust in on-line environment. part of this ties into your social capital online. what are you doing when you go on line? how are you interacting with people? are you socially grooming people? are you wish him happy birthday? are youre-tweeting -- are you re-tweeeting something they said? are you a participant in the community? how are you purchase a fading in the new environment in a way that builds up your personal profile? that level of trust is very individual and personal. i think it is hard to have a brand that people trust. you can have a person that people turn to and trust for news and information. i think all of that ties into

what you do on your online, how you treat others when you are online, and how much time you spend engaging in the new media environment. >> they call this a digital footprint. your digital footprint is comprised of two things, things that to publish about yourself and things that other publish about you. you can control what you publish about yourself. bl if you. ogging -- if you are blogging online -- a lot of people like to hide under names. they did that for a reason. when you could go their actual name, it does not show up in the results. things you publish about yourself and others are publishing about you. if you are a core brand or person, that could be -- if you are in college any dissenting on campus and there is an article about you in student government, that is all forming an impression.

if i am a future employer or seeking out information about you and google is returning the repellent -- the prevalent results, it is before i him in. you can influence with others published about you. > >> anything i post is not just about me. it has seen in's brand on it. you have to be aware of that. you cannot put embarrassing things on it to you or your company. even if you did not have the company brand, people associate you with that company are with that campaign. if you just had your own name with owncnn at the -- your own

name with out cnn at the end, people will connect that back to you. you have to be conscious of the digital foot print. >> i think the web has muddle that line between personal and professional. that is why you will see things on twitter account things about a day job with tweets being my own opinion. i may take a position that my clients may be against or four. a lot of people -- or for. and what people are trying to define the lines. >> people want to know what the blotgger has to say. it keeps a large amount of interest.

at the same time, they have to be cognizant of what brands they are associating themselves with as well. if that brand or new platform is dramatically different, if they switch from a newspaper to another, that will impact their personal friend as well. it goes both ways. >> the new technology, being able to hold of yourself and be able to overlay what is around you. how is augmented reality going to be used in campaigns and in politics? >> right now it is a cool tool. you can take your phone and folded up and down load and application and get all of the reviews for what is going on and around you. that part of it is really cool. it is like something out of a science-fiction novel. can you imagine getting to the

point where you hold of your iphone and every time you turn directions you get a different political message? but eventually, the more we use these tools, the more we will produce a lot of noise. we will start turning them out. for me, my interest is how can use this to do something really interesting what people are still excited about it. what is it going to evolve into so we can jump on it? >> there are so many different kinds of social media and what not. users are very smart and are able to figure out what they think is noise and what they buy. -- like. what is the point istweeting about -- what is the point of

tweeting about things that people can find out anywhere? they want to read about things they have not seen. it is a tidbit. i think the future is there all things -- if you just throw out things coming you hear back quickly. if you are just using the internet to spam people, it'll blow back in your face quickly. >> there is a medical study about mit. it talks about condescend overload. people tend to face this, especially older people, where they feel overwhelmed. they fill shellshocked and the come on line. -- a feel shellshocked when they come on line. dating size that do not limit choices tend to overwhelm people

so much they spend less time evaluating the right potential mates for them. websites that help limit the @@@@kj@ @ @ i think we can apply that more broadlyç to the world of information and political information. there is a lot of stuff out there just googling the word politics opens up endless possibilities for research, education, opinion. and people will hone in on sources that they trust. sources that have good social capital over a period of time. we are not a bunch of idiots using the internet or smart peoplet( and we are going to figure out who is producing gooç content and focus on those organizations and people and blockç outç the rest of the n. >> that is why twitter launched the twitter list to help parsew

the contentçç é(@v will end b interest or subject or what have you.w3 çç named i]dunbar.w3 have you ever heard of theçó dunbar 150? he talks about the fact that the humant( brain can only manage about 150çóok active relationsh ati] a time. that may meanxd you could know 2,000 to 3,000 people from childhood to present day but now we are all part ofqxd theç dun 150 because we are in the same room and talking about something and share something. but we may move into the daily stuff and lose trackq of folks and somebody's birthdayç pops . when you have a news feed and stuff comesq pilingçó t(in,ç y thumb up something or share something but then you go off and do work and you can't look atta[ç all day. -- can't look at that all day. so whether it is twitter, facebook, or whatever you have

to qualify what is a value and your brain makes that snap judgment over time of what isç valuable and what isn't. interesting way of going back there. it is the concept that wherever you are going, you are taking advantage of all the information that is out there. the second set of that is that it is being customized to you. [unintelligible] it was a little projector it that attach to an augmented reality device. to give an example. you could to a bigger store and pick up a box of cereal. it to a project the cost of the cereal at other supermarket. you customize it to say you do not like this cereal or the cereal has a high amount of fat. there are always different ways

you can customize it to make sure the information is relevant to you. i think that the future of taking advantage of the information is out there. we will make sure that it is relevant and customized to you. every minute -- how much is uploaded to youtube? >> 20 hours. >> you can never watch everything on the youtube. you have to think about what is relevant to you. >> i used to work and c-span. i remember he spends his day going through all the newspapers. i remember going, why are you wasting your time? he said, what do you mean? i said, he can set of news alert. he said, what about the things i did not know i cared about?

you can narrowly focused things you know you are interested in. the after discovery is almost removed in some ways. . -- act of discovery is almost removed in some ways. it is about finding. i do not want to spend all day searching. while i am searching, i also learned new things. we have to be careful about only subscribing to things we know we are going to care about. >> by 2020, the main way we will be injured. accessing the internet is by the cell phone -- the main way we will be accessing the internet is by the cell phone.

how do you [unintelligible] >> it is always changing. with the obama campaign, we did a lot of mobile technology organization. as you mentioned earlier with haiti, you see a much better example of donating. $5 million was done in $10 increments. -a thousand people donated through their cell phones. -- 500,000 people donated through their cell phones. you have these different ways coming together. the cell phone technology is expanding. it is allowing people to get more personalized information. i think what campaigns are going to need to do is realize that it is not the same as something like an e-mail list.

it is not a list of names and addresses. instead, there is a much richer interaction with people. if people are out of school and they signed up, we should track that so that we can give them information relevant to the school. i think campaigns need to find a way to utilize that. one non campaign example is something that was just recently launched that allows you to track what congress is doing on your phone. it is really interesting, because those people that are interested, and they might be walking around in the halls of congress and want to know that this bill was introduced even though i was out of office. as the cell phone carriers and the makers of the phones like apple and google -- they recognize the potential and are

doing what they can to open it up. i think that there is really a lot of potential out there. the key is that the campaigns need to make sure that they keep tying it back to the person and making it relevant. >> if you get an update on your phone every time a bill is introduced in congress, you have to do some of the online dating sites. it is pretty boring. >> one of the things that the obama campaign did with the mobile is some of the study showed that it urged on election day for people to go out and vote. they were checking the weather patterns across the country. if you lived in a rainy city, you were less likely to go out in you get up to five texts a day. it could also add your contact

information. that turnout functionality showed that among younger audiences, the voter turnout was increased because of that mobile technology. i think there is a lot of discussion about how much mobile and internet really affected rate in 2008. i think the messaging in the campaigning have a lot to do with it, too. it you look at the way that folks are connecting in that way of the immobile, it is changing we will see the functionality changing. right now it is web content of looks ok on a small screen. right now it is expensive to do some of the mobile technology.

a lot of folks doing it in doing it well. >> of the last question before we take questions from the audience. i was reading yesterday about the kay bailey had some campaign and how during the campaign -- hutcheson campaign and how during the campaign google found out there were hidden search terms in the html part of the website. it was about how this had happened. there were nondisclosure agreements. they never found out who did it. the website was blacklisted on google search. who sets the ethical standards? this is a big question. who is setting the ethics and standards and the express'best s on how a campaign reaches

voters? >> i think it is policed by the users out there who will feel that is a dirty trick. do not pollute our online environment with this or that. that might not be good. sometimes there may need to be more. people on line are smart. they are not sitting there in their pajamas singing this or that. they know when someone is manipulating the web in a way it is underhanded. that is very risky for candidates. it will blow up in their faces. >> i do not know if you familiar with the google bomb. google returns search results of what is most relevant. if you have a bunch of people linking to something, ending google will think that it must

be relevant. if you would google "miserable failure" it would give you whitehouse.gov. >> this is the bush administration. >> this was the bush administration. google said people were manipulating this. a guy had a friend who is applying for a job. [unintelligible] they said this is a great thing. president bush's by a would come up first. -- biography would come up. and then to become a googled is able to it. people were manipulating it. this is not what its -- googl

eventually, googled disabled it. people were manipulating it. this is not what it is for. it is caused damage. if you google some of the things today, whitehouse.gov would still come up. when a new white house comes to town and want to change the links, that sets google back. >> i think the internet is like the force. you can use the force for good or evil. you can train yourself in the dark or light side. if you spend too much time in the dark side of the force, and eventually come in the e walks will start throwing stuff at you -- being ewokthe ewoks willt

throwing stuff at you. how you act on line is very important. >> one last thing to add. what we see with these, we were talking about individuals. if the person on google want to get what is interesting to them. when that does not happen, what is the deal with that? they blame google or whatever website. these companies are very protective of that and making sure whatever they are using works the way it is supposed to. i think what we often see is the companies themselves leaking its common not because -- leaking it, not because of their good-natured, because worrying about people leaving them. that is how they make money. taking google and china, they just announced that they are threatening to pull out of china

completely. it is because a month ago, the chinese military government packed into google accounts of democratic activists. google said it was unacceptable. what is most interesting to me is that here you have a superpower, a huge country, actually working directly with a company. this is not through the u.s. government or anything like that. china did not come out saying, whatever, you can leave a. it did not have a response for a day. then they were like, anyone that wants to work here has to abide by our rules. it did not come back in a competitive way. you see this company acting on behalf of the users to protect them. i think that'll be the way going forward. it is not a perfect system. when it does become destructive

or manipulate the users in the way they do not want, you will see the company's force it. @@@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ >> there's an article about this story and the state department was quoted. you know your site has some weight if google says we won't be in china and the state department has to weigh in on the application because it affects u.s.-china relations. >> we will go to the first audience question. let's try to keep them as crisp and concise as possible. >> i attend the honors college. my first question -- only one questi question. if possible, i wanted to know why do you think during the 2008 presidential campaign obama had such a large number of young supporters? and do you feel that that number has changed after obama has been

in office for a year, and why? >> big question, but i will break it down in a couple of parts. i think there are two big reasons why obama had such support amongst young people. young people were valued. they were not extra. there was a national youth department. whenever there was a campaign staff, there were people associated with reaching out to young people. if you think about it, that party exists with most other groups. you have a veterans outreach staffer. often, younger people were left behind on that. while we may be different in what gets us in gauge or our schedules, we are the same in

that if you reach out to us, we will respond. having someone focused on reaching out to young people is crucial. i think the obama campaign recognized that and recognized its this person is 17 and they want to help out, we will say that you can make phone calls or let's make sure that if you want to volunteer on your campus that you can. there was a higher degree of engagement with younger viewers. the other side is that a lot of what obama talked-about was appealing to young people. he is relatively young. he talked about issues relevant to younger people. when he was a senator, he proposed a bill to increase financial aid for students. it is easy for him to relate to people.

he is charismatic. he was able to reach young people out there. simply holding a rally in getting people there was not one to turn out the boat. it relied on the first step, making sure the staffers were behind the matter to engage the people and making sure they were able to vote. >> it needs to be said that john mccain valued young people and their boats as well and was reaching out for the votes. i think the obama campaign was better for two big reasons. one would be just the kind of change that candidates obama was talking about appeal to young people more radical, we are really going to shake up washington. mccain said he was going to as well. when you look at specific bullet points of the obama campaign committee were speaking the same language as a young people. they were using the tools.

they were using the tools to better connect with them. john mccain now has one of the best or most followed twitter account in the world. he has over $1 million. while he was not doing that and s a presidential candidates, i do not know. i am not saying that if john mccain was using twitter he would be president. i think that would be absurd. i do not think the social media itself will be elected president. when you put the whole package together -- by the way, there is a point about traditional media and ground gaining in the campaign. you cannot just focus on social media because that is the wave of the future at the expense of making the phone calls, going door-to-door.

the obama campaign had the whole package. they were still knocking on doors and using facebook. just a quick on why they may be losing some young people. the first part of what i said -- i talked about the tools. there may be some young people who might feel disillusioned now that some of the promises that were made more radical change todd had not been delivered. it delivers on the health care bill, some of the mind may be changed. it is still early. >> thank you. >> one thing i should have also mentioned is what was happening independent of the obama campaign. in the 2004 election, you saw an increasing number of young people boating each time. regardless of who is running, the trend would continue. he just did a good job of capitalizing on it. >> thank you for being here.

my question is regarding -the text messages that people are receiving from endorsements. recently, our senate races caught national attention and a democratic leaders have been texting people who are on their list to go vote for other democratic candidates. scott brown continues to rise in the polls. do you think that the text message endorsements actually have a big effect or are they speaking to the choir? >> that is a great question. a lot of it remains to be seen. it is not is what you are doing online. it is what you are doing offline that also counts. there had been some interesting news stories about massachusetts. the fact that republicans even see a little bit of light of day there, that we could take take kennedy's seat -- there is excitement around that.

some folks may lead to the right in our getting energized about that. i am sure more money is flowing into that. in some way, text messaging is a way to keep in touch with your folks up there and your supporters. during the obama campaign, i live in a part of northern virginia that is retired military. i could not go to an event, whether a book festival or farmers' market or even to the market to buy food and where there would not be an obama table with volunteers signing people to register to vote. i think it is a combination of all of the above. whether you are doing things on the web or mobile, and is not a replacement. >> it surprises me -- this has been done with a direct mail for

the past 20 or 30 years. then it was done by e-mail for the past eight years. now they are moving to text messages. it is an old school tactic being applied to a new school technology. i am not quite sure how effective that is. i think we view it as noise. we delete it. we put it in the garbage. if it came from someone who actually knew saying, dude, important election. we need to. i think he would hold onto that. >> with texting [unintelligible] with e-mail, you get them all the time. if you get a text, and to opt out, and you still get text messages, the finder through the roof. because most people value their cell phone, it is a way to directly reach people when there is an urgent need, whether get out and vote or getting your

friends to vote. that is a qualified connection to reach people independently. most people read text messages with them minutes after receiving them. whit e-mails, i have several and red. >> -- with e-mails, i have several that are on runred. -- unread. >> with some recent advances such recenttivo, -- recent adventures such as tivo, the thing fire at will help? >> i think it still depends on the mainstream media to pick them up. lastly, a member of the mainstream media said it too is no longer going to cover viral ads if there is not a television ad behind them.

he said they were not serious unless the organizations were willing to put a quarter of a million dollars behind them as interesting as they are -- behind them. as interesting as they are committing the mainstream media to get more play. -- as interesting as they are, the mainstream media is needed to get more play. >> is an adviser to were television only? -- isn't that [unintelligible] he said he will put that up. television is definitely dominating what is going on. there is a little interest in putting the television ad before the but the video online. if you what is coming to get

free content. it is -- what it, you get free content. it is a tiny percentage of what is happening. >> i think it can get attention. if you have a very cool viral baad and too good to of debate d you do not know the issues and do misspeak on terrorism, chances are the viral ad will not carry on the election. >> thank you. >> one more quick question. >> i come from washington college. there has been some discussion and where i used to concerning the over exposure of the president due to the new media. do you feel this is a bad

changed? do you feel the president should be this exposed in the media and public or do you feel people are overreacting? >> i think the media to talk about how overexpose the barack obama is -- i think regular people really care. if the media have not been [unintelligible] >> i can see both sides of this. the need is driving it. i talked to a lot of real people back home. they are singaying that obama is everywhere on television. that is fine. i think there was a lot of pundits over doing that too is over exposed. it is a free country.

if he wanted to use the new media, he has the ability to do it. there are diminishing returns some time. we saw the health care bill earlier. he was not moving it forward. he pulled back for a while and was not out there every single day. now it looks like he is on the verge of a victory. i think he is free to do what he wants. i think they are still seeing that sweating it and going out there can move the ball forward for them. sometimes they have to pull back. the white house turned this on the media. he is had not had a news conference since july or june. he has been getting pressure on that. board gives us said, i bet you guys said that he was over exposed -- robert gibbs said,

i thought you guys said that he was over exposed. i do not think we should just say he is over exposed doing too much. if he thinks that is what he need to do to get his message out, he is free to do that. i think the white house has learned that there are diminishing returns some time. you cannot be out there in everybody's face every day. >> and not have actions showing up. >> if there is not a movement on it -- now they are starting to meet the deadlines. there are two bills that they are trying to merge. there is substance behind it. earlier, there was a lot of talk. now that there is something they can ra now i think there is something they can rally behind, him

messaging it may be more effective. >> to finish up, your last quick question and we will do an opinion from each of the panelists. i think it is interesting if this was january 15, 2000, that a.o.l. and time warner would have just merged. i was reading about this in "new york times" yesterday, $350 billion is what is estimated that merger was worth with and people said it would change the landscape of the internet and the way news was reported and all of this. and if anyone would have said 10 years ago that it would be just a flop, no one would have believed you. my kquestion is what do we believe today that in two years or five years or 10 years is people are going to say i can't believe we believed that? >> about technology? >> yes. >> that is deep. >> after saying that everyone

fell on their face with predictions you want us to go out on the limb. >> we have to look at how quickly technology is advancing. things that took two years to create a year ago will take half the time. it is moore's law that says technology is advancing so rapidly. so this concept of convergence, this concept of everything will be touch screen and you walk in your house and there will be no more televisions or computers, just everything is touch screen, we are seeing some of that already. microsoft came out with the table a couple of years ago. ng some of that already. skype has added to this. i do not know if it'll be 10 years from now, but it'll be interesting to see this. leo henry was asked about the information superhighway. his response was, "i think we are still sitting in the

driveway." we will not be as far aa long as we think we will be. >> most of the web use will be on cell phones. i do not think that. i think people by having a little more space and a different work products. on the fly, it is great to take a baseball score. i think there is a value in having more than a little screen. >> our television screens get bigger and yourself on screens get smaller. -- and your cell phone screens get smaller. >> i'll give one or two examples of things i think could go either way. another example might be myspace, which was valued at hundreds of millions of dollars. they are losing people dramatically.

they need to adapt to the new technology and things that are changing. the companies think the way to do that is to give them the platform to treat it their own way. the iphone would become obsolete or become identical to every other phone it did not have applications. that is what people are picking i phones. the companies need to make sure the allow people to react with content and the products in unique ways. they all face the problem of monetizing for . facebook will be an interesting example. they have a huge user base. they are growing dramatically. if they need to make money through ads. they are getting people to share more information.

with myspace, you did not know who the people were. you did not know if they were 99-years old or if they were whatever age they put in between. it was all subjective. with facebook, they but there'll information. if they had to verify they were a college student. then people "friend" them. it the person had a random photograph or nickname, and they were not going to "friend" them because they did not know them. the founder facebook says he thinks people are valuing privacy in lot less than they did before. that is why facebook is sharing more of your information. there are things that you cannot hide now. i'm not going to predict facebook will not be here in 10- years, but they need to be careful with the pact they

follow. -- path they follow. something new comes along to take their space. -book had facebook take their space. they capitalized on their weakness. i think it'll be interesting to see what comes up. i think that will have the biggest impact. >> thank you to the political management o. thank you to each when the panelists for coming. thank you very much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] nancy

pelosi and majority leader steny hoyer ensued reporters questions for about half an hour. >> javier fa javier becerra once again on behalf of our chairman and

>> our leader was called back home for family reasons. reasons. we just want to say that this has been an exciting issues conference. our focus was on what it should be, jobs, security in america, and we also spent time with leaders like bill clinton, talking about the tragedy in haiti but i must tell you, we just had a powerful, sensible wind blown beneath our wings by bill clinton, former president of the united states. to start this conference off with another president, eric schmidt from google, to hear from the president of the united states, barack obama and to have been between more than a dozen presidents in ceo's of business and labor come before us and

tell us of their optimism and their belief that we can get this done i believe the leaves are members ready to go back to work next week. we are prepared to take the words of bill clinton, barack obama, eric schmidt into with the people of america have been waiting for and that is for us to pass health care legislation, to put americans back to work and to have sensible policy on energy and to bring this forward in foreign policy as well and we heard from our leaders, principally from the speaker of the house of representatives and she reported to us as well and i would like to now turn over the microphone to her. madam speaker. >> thank you very much javier becerra vice chair of the caucus, thanks to u.n. to john larsen for an invigorating couple of days. it was exciting but it also gave us time to think, to reflect, to pause as we go forward. one year almost since the day that the president was sworn in,

nearly a year. we can take stock about the agenda that he put forth, the budget that we passed, to grow our economy, to stabilize the u.s. economy to create jobs, to lower taxes for the middle class as we reduce the deficit centered around three pillars, investments and education, investments in energy/climate change, investments in health care first among equals. and these three days, we have leaders from every field. win eric schmitz spoke to us little that we know when he was abided that it would be the day that google would be making its statesman of china about freedom of expression, which is so important to all of us. in fact it is your profession and me thank you for that. that we would hear from the president about these three investments yesterday and from president clinton today about

how important our focus on job, securing jobs, securing america, they are related so i thank feist chair becerra and i thank chairman larsen again for providing this then you for us to have an exchange of ideas with leaders, as he mentioned panels, our friends in labor and others about how we go forward with the creation of jobs through innovation, and new jobs which reach not only about getting jobs to those who have them but reaching whole other populations and giving them hope for better jobs in the very near future. again, first among equals is the issue of investment in health care and i thank you all for your interest in that subject. it is a personal issue with the american people. tip o'neill said all politics is local. when it comes to health care,

all politics is personal. everyone is an expert on his or her own health care insurance and the rest and so this is personal with the american people. it is about people, families, small businesses, our economy in general and to move forward in a way that reduces the deficit as it grows our economy. the jobs, the health issue is a jobs issue in addition to doing a, of being a personal issue in terms of the health of the american people. so, i reported briefly to our colleagues that we are moving forward, we are making progress, we are establishing common ground on some of the few issues that were different in our bills, as the term goes, to reconcile them and i am very pleased that we are going forth to honor the 3a's, affordability

for the middle class, accountability for the insurance companies and accessibility for many more americans to quality, affordable health care. we are doing this in a way that is fiscally sound. as you know it must be paid for but not only that, it must also bring down the cost of health care now and over, and continue to do so over time so i am proud of the work of our chairman, mr. rangel and mr. miller, mr. ringgold, congresswoman waxman-- did i say one of them twice? congressman waxman as chair rules committee and all of our members, to mr. dingell it was the inspiration to us. congresswoman slaughter, did i acknowledge your? in any event it has been a lot of hard work for many people over a long period of time. no one has worked harder or more

smartly than our step and i want to commend them as well but again we will move forward with more conversations this afternoon and hopefully when we get together next week we will have a lot more information to share with you. but, hopefully suffice to say, suffice to say for me anyway, again. we are finding our common ground. we are making progress. we bring this congress closer to taking the historic step that has eluded other congresses in the past. it was first introduced by an idea and the country by a republican president, teddy roosevelt. to honor his idea on the commitment of so many others over the years we honor that responsibility but most of all the responsibility we have to the american people. president obama has said it over and over again. we will measure our success by the progress that is made by america's working families, and this is great progress for america's working families, when

we pass it. please heal to the distinguished majority leader, mr. hoyer. >> thank you very much madam speaker. this has been a wonderful conference. i want to congratulate john marston our gest mac john larsen javier becerra who is then it wonderful job in leading this congress. we just heard from bill clinton. i have been here for some years and in the 1980's particularly the middle of 1980, we were talking about whether america could continue to debate the world. with the germans, the japanese and others were moving ahead of us at a very rapid rate. in the 1990's we adopted an economic program and i would remind all of you that we pass that in a partisan fashion with no republican votes. that is not the way we wanted to pass it but that is the way we passed it. and we saw the greatest economic resurgence that i have seen in my lifetime in this country.

jobs were created, surpluses were created, the problems were just a few months ago in the beginning of last year we confronted the worst economic crisis since the great depression. we heard from president obama yesterday as we heard from president clinton today. pundits, many of you, have observed that we have just gone through one of the most productive sessions in the history of the house. confronting the issues that the president said he was going to confront, we said we were going to confront, and that the american people knew needed to be confronted. we needed to confront the economic crisis. we did so. the economy has been stabilized. we have brought, as president obama noted, since the recovery act was adopted, a very

substantial reduction in the loss of jobs. that is progress but not success. once we pass this healthcare bill, as we are going to do in the near future, we are going to concentrate like a laser on creating jobs, because we need to have america back to work. to have america back to work. we are going to make sure, as we have done, that we are going to be having energy security. that is our national security and our economic security interest. and we have to work with the senate to pass legislation to effect that end. and, we are going to insure fiscal responsibility, as was done in the clinton administration. contrary to the observation of those who opposed his economic program. we need to return to fiscal responsibility. so, i say to you that the major objectives of the second session of the congress we will be

pursuing is the completion of the agenda that was so folsom in addressing the problems america confronted in the last session and now, create those jobs come and bring fiscal responsibility and ensure our national security. i want to also say that the unity of our caucus which was reflected last year continues to exist, and in closing let me say one of the themes eric schmidt started with, president obama talked about and president clinton talked about is optimism. america of is going to be the continuing great economic engine of the world. we need the unity of purpose and we need to stop scaring in making angry and negative and the press to the american people, as to many in this

country are doing and we need to call in summon them to a greater effort and we need to say to them, we will be with you and we are going to create those jobs, build the economy, make our energy system secure, and see a better america. optimism and commitment are the themes of this conference. >> before you yield, i wanted to introduce someone. because i want to say something very special. thank you mr. leader. i associate myself with all of your remarks. there was a mention in my remarks, eric schmidt came to the day that google was making its expression about freedom of-- in china. to talk about health care in green jobs at etc, that it would be at this very sad time. he being the u.n. special envoy

to haiti, a person with a personal connection to haiti, he and secretary clinton, they love the place, they love the people and the haitian people know that. so, we burberry blessed to have a report by the president on how he saw the situation in haiti. from my own experience with their quakes, being from san francisco, i think this could be an opportunity for a real boom economy in haiti that can leapfrog over its past challenges, economically politically and demographically in terms of the rich and the poor and the rest there, and have a new, just a new fresh start and with all of the concern and compassion and enthusiasm to help the people of haiti, nobody is better suited them president clinton to channel that energy, but here in the congress, mr. clyburn has

taken the initiative, working for a long time with the congressional black caucus in the interest in haiti in general and now specifically to address the concern that is in the congress, the channel that in a positive way under the leadership of president obama, i think was particular. we saw first-hand his personal concern, his leadership on this issue but i am very pleased that our distinguished whip mr. clyburn who worked so hard to change attitudes toward katrina and get the sources-- resources there that were not immediately available but through his actions became available, he has agreed to be the head of our effort for haiti in the congress so i wanted to thank him for his long-term interest and for what he is going to do in that regard, as he comes to the microphone. >> thank you madam speaker. let me just say a word about

katie. i think all of us have really been overjoyed at the response that president obama has made towards haiti on behalf of the american people. we saw him announce a million dollar-- 100 million-dollar initiative in haiti. we will follow here in the congress with our response, and people all over america are responding in a very unique sort of ways to the people of haiti. and, to help facilitate that, i am joining with minority leader eric cantor, the good cheer of the ways and means committee, rangel, and the ranking member of the ways and means committee,

congressman camp, filing legislation either later today or first thing monday to allow all of the american people who contribute to this haitian cause to be able to use their 2009 tax deductions to assist them with the this so that if they were to join in this effort, because everybody is asking us, don't send food, send money so that people can organize, coordinate and respond in a way that would be affected so that food won't be left out on pallets to spoil, and that sort of thing. let this thing be coordinated and to facilitate that, we want to pass legislation, hopefully

very soon. congress will do the things to respond to this but we want this to be a package, be a part of that package so people who to respond can deduct their contributions on their 2009 taxes. somebody just lost all of their communications. i am sorry about that. let me just close my comments first by thanking javier becerra, my classmate, chairman larsen, who was one of my very close friends. we spend a lot of time together almost every evening. >> where would that be? [laughter] >> we work on the whip channel almost every evening. it gets a little bit glick would sometimes. i want to thank the speaker for

just a tremendous effort she has put forth, not just here, but with this health care issue that we are looking to resolve here soon. my longtime friend, steny hoyer, we have been working very closely together on this and of course chairman van holland, chris van hollen with whom i am consulting early this afternoon before takeoff for the weekend to help them with the efforts. i want to close with something the speaker said about how personal this health care reform issue is. in the town hall meetings i have held over the phone, in person, throughout my congressional district, people come to the mic to talk about health care reform in a very personal way. as president clinton said today, if you just forget about all of

these other things that could help you make up your mind about it, just think about, as they said when i introduced the president, president obama win he came to our caucus the other day. i talked about my now 15-year-old grandson who came here three months before anybody expected him, three and a half pounds, having three operations before he was 20 pounds and had to-- and to watch him today because of this tremendous health care system that we have in the country, but knowing full well that he is able to take advantage of that, only because of who his parents and grandparents are and only because they have the kind of health insurance that would allow him, and watch my son-in-law and my daughter repaed this tremendous

co-payment that took them over three years to pay for coming and you can get a good feel personally for why we have got to do this. so, i know we have cut a good health care system in this country, but there is something wrong with saying that is only available to you if you are fortunate enough to be born into a family and it is only available to you if you are fortunate enough to be employed by a corporation that will provide you health care. and come we have got to do something about that and i am tremendously pleased that this democratic caucus is going to get this done in the not too distant future and i believe, as former president senator and now

deceased kennedy once said, i believe that we are going to make this a fundamental right for every american, and that is as it should be and with that i would like to yield to our distinguished chair, chris van holland. >> thank you, thank you mr. clyburn and thank you for your passionate commitment to these issues and all of my colleagues. it was a great caucus. an opportunity to take stock and where we have been and discuss how we are quinn to move forward and accelerate job creation in the days, weeks and months ahead. clearly, if you look back one year from this month, the economy was in total freefall, 750,000 americans lost their jobs at this time last year. the stock market was in the dumps and economic growth was going downward at a rate of 6.5%. working with their new

president, passing economic recovery bill and with the entrepreneurial and optimism, spirit of the optimism of the american people we have now begun to stabilize the economy and very focused on turning the corner. it would be a huge mistake that this point in time to turn back the clock to the policies that got us into this economic mess in the first place, and it would be a huge mistake to allow the status quo to prevail in the area of health care for the insurance industry holds the american people in our health care system hostage. and so this is a time to continue the momentum of last year, understanding as the majority leader said that we have made progress but we still haven't met our goals but confident in the optimism and the the entrepreneurial spirit of the american people that we will be able to do it, so let's not turn back the clock. let's recaptured the same energy

and policies that under the clinton administration brought this nation eight years of prosperity. >> we have the time for a couple of questions and you know that president clinton will be coming yeltsin. >> no, actually there are no sticking points. i would say if there are two words -- three words is finding common ground. that is what we are in the process of doing. it is is just making some decisions in that regard. with regard to the excise tax that was rejected in the house of representatives, we received the good news that there had been some accommodation arrived at by the white house because this was something that -- this is something that the president wants to have in